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Take It 



} IME is busy as a faker with his little game 


■JL of chance; busy as an undertaker at an 
Arizona dance. Time will never stop a second 
for the things you have to say; all his dates 
ahead are reckoned, he is always baling hay. 
Let us, then, quit loafing, creeping; let us 
work from sun to sun; so that when it's time 
for sleeping, we may say: u The chores are 
done!"—Walt Mason. 






Take It 

* 

Suggestions as to Your Right to the World 
and the Great Things That Are In It 


By George Matthew Adams 

Author of “You Can” 


If you can fill the unforgiving minute 
With sixty seconds' worth of distance run — 
Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it. 

—Rudyard Kipling. 



NEW YORK 

FREDERICK A. STOKES COMPANY 

PUBLISHERS 











Copyright, 1917 , by 

Frederick A. Stokes Company 


All rights reserved, including that of translation into foreign 
languages, including the Scandinavian 



* ' ( 

Mr 

AUG 27 1917 


©CI.A470798 








to 

R. G. 
P. C. 
W.M. 
E. F. 
J. D. 
B. B. 
D. H. 

Seven 

Friends 






A man is a bundle of relations , a knot of roots , 
whose flower and fruitage is the world. Insulate 
and you destroy him. He cannot live with¬ 
out a World. — Emerson. 




Take It 


Well, Let’s Do 



HE zvorld is here. S.ome of us get four years 


more of education than others, but that’s not 


much. Some of us have rich parents and some 
poor. Ifs a question which is better. Some of us live in 
the country and some in the city, but the geography of 
our lives is of little vital importance. In fact, hardly any¬ 
thing alters the fact that the world is here. 

George Matthew Adams knows this, so he says f( Take 
It.” There are no conditions, no equivocations to the 
title of this book. 

Somehow I feel he is right after I turn anywhere into 
this book and read six or eight of these talks. I know I 
do after I have spent a half hour of my time with him, 
and that is often my privilege. I know the big business 
office he runs. Every one in that office has the spirit of a 
fighter and a conqueror—even “Mike” who wraps the 
packages. George Matthew Adams is a “taker” himself, 
and he multiples himself. He takes knocks, and bounces 
back up. He takes victories and looks ahead for some 
more of the enemy. He takes cities and passes on to 
the next one. (Salesmen will knoiv what I mean.) He 
takes life with a square jaw and the buoyant, resilient 
heart of a boy. And, best of all, he takes dozens, hun¬ 
dreds, of people along with him into that world of en¬ 
thusiasm that he creates anew every morning. 

He should do himself into a book. It is right that he 
should. Now he can take thousands along, instead of 
hundreds. 

Of course, sometimes, the world must be taken a little 
bit at a time. I believe Mr. Kipling suggests a second at 


[vii] 





Take It 


a time. We must fight inch by inch up to certain fort¬ 
resses and then hammer one small blozv at a time until 
the walls fall. But we can be as full of the spirit of 
taking it” at any intermediate minute as we are at the 
last final minute of attainment—if we wish. And that, 
of courseis what this book is about. It is to make us 
get our eyes on a fort—the world — success — life—and 
take it inch by inch, moment by moment, in better heart. 

George Matthew Adams in this book is a sort of foot¬ 
ball coach to the soul. He brushes aside excuses for 
defeat. He makes the opposing team look insignificant. 
He makes us feel as if we can win this game. Fm glad 
he wrote this book. Now, Fm going out and take a hill¬ 
top on u high.” 

JDo tcttecotd 


[viii] 





Topics 


Page 

Take It.i 

By Always Thinking.2 

Little Devils.2 

Rain.3 

Enforced Intimacies.4 

Good Losers.5 

Relationship.6 

Sense of Humor.7 

Your Two Men. . 8 

Suggestions About Suggestion.9 

The Right Thing.9 

What’s the Odds.10 

“I Am I”.n 

Age.12 

Be Game.13 

I Know.13 

-But.14 

C. O. D.15 

Enemies .16 

Credo. r ... 17 

Secret History.18 

The Believe Ins.19 

I Would Rather.20 

Waste-Basket It.21 

Twilight.21 

Love.22 

Fit In.23 

Almost.24 

Spuzz ..25 

Whistle.26 

'Crowds.27 

Little Fellows.28 

Hate is Waste.28 

Your Under-Dogs.29 

Aching Bones. 3 ° 

Your Pencil. 3 1 

[ix] 









































Topics 


Page 

Fear-Thought.32 

A Day.32 

Your Opposites.33 

Who’s Who.34 

On Borrowing.35 

Hope and Courage.36 

You’ve Got to Step.37 

Bubbles.38 

On Following.38 

Gigmen.39 

Stiff Starched.40 

Rags and Bran.41 

Bridges.42 

Talk It Over.42 

Meddlers.43 

Fiddling.44 

Early Birds.45 

Cut Grass.46 

Meditate.46 

Settle It.47 

The Many.48 

It Might Be Better.49 

Some Dont’s ..50 

Credit.50 

The Brothers of the Smile ..51 

Scars. 52 

Holy Hysterics.53 

Idea Ownership.54 

Off Parade.54 

Honesty Is Intelligence.55 

The Educated Heart.56 

What You Can.57 

This Artificial World.58 

Your Neighbor.59 

Titles.60 

The Hand Clappers.61 

[x] 









































Topics 


Page 

The Greatest Habit.61 

Condition.62 

The Punch.63 

You.64 

How to Find Yourself.65 

Strangers.66 

Horse Play.67 

That Which Comes.68 

The Sun..69 

Awe.69 

On Forgiving Yourself.70 

Clock Watchers.71 

Spilled Milk.72 

Hats and Collars. 73 

Playing and Being.73 

Onslaughts.74 

The True Host.75 

A Five-Hour Day.76 

Golf.76 

Perspiration. 77 

Nit-Wits.78 

Brook Philosophy.79 

How. 79 

I Must.80 

Shaking Hands ..81 

Tears.82 

Who Cares?.83 

Blue Devils.84 

Say So.84 

Dropping Stitches.85 

Keep Pegging.86 

Success Defined.87 

Handful Democracy.88 

Holdbackers.89 

Be Brief. 9 ° 

Talk Exchange. 9 1 

[xi] _ 










































Topics 


Page 

Why.91 

Men of Parts.92 

The Human Republic.93 

Encouragement.94 

Adventure.95 

Assert Yourself.96 

On Being Sorry.97 

Feet and Eyes.97 

Lonely Isolation.98 

Carpets and Cushions.99 

Sail On—And On!.99 

Hands.loo 

Brain Youth.101 

Your Majesty.102 

On Confessing.102 

Step Back.103 

The Unexpected. 104 

Full of Heart. 105 

Understanding. 106 

Spirit.107 

The Important Man.107 

Why and How.108 

The Unconquerable.109 

The Waiting Room.no 

March with Events.in 

But Once.in 

Your Colors.112 

Danger.113 

Human Nobility.114 

Forever.115 

Good-by.115 


[xii] 






































Take It 


Take It 

T HIS big, round, fiery, sad, serious, happy-go-lucky 
world belongs to you. It exists that you may be 
given a chance. But you must not expect it to 
come and play court to you for its possession. It’s 
YOURS—already. “Without money and without price.” 

Take it. 

Take it that you may feast hourly upon its gifts of 
Love and Hope and Happiness and Power and Influence 
and Experience and Knowledge—that you may revel in 
its intricate mysteries, and re-discover its hidden treas¬ 
ures—and that it may hotten your blood till it tingles— 
till it spurs you into doing. The world! 

Take it. 

Don’t let it roll away—and don’t go to sleep in its 
shade. Or somebody else is sure to snatch your world 
and own it himself. Then there will be in this world 
no world for you. And in time this grey templed old 
world won’t recall that you were ever around. So, I say 
to you again—right now —this world’s for you! 

Take it. 

Then give it away. For if you do, at that moment, 
NEW worlds will immediately appear—all yours. New 
wonders. New life. New power. From everywhere, 
from everybody, from everything—worlds, worlds, 
worlds—nothing but worlds for you if you but strive to 
b'e a Realizer, to be Faithful—to Help. Your world is 
now ready for you. 

Take it. 


[1] 





Take It 


By Always Thinking 

I T is said that somebody once asked Newton how he 
had made his marvelous -discoveries in the physical 
realm, and his reply was: “By always thinking about 
them.” Back of all habit is thought. And, too, thought 
may be made anybody’s greatest and most useful habit. 

By always thinking you shut out the useless and pur¬ 
poseless affairs that, blood-sucker-like, seek to take from 
you without giving anything helpful in return. 

By always thinking, the unkind and cutting words that 
so often escape your lips, never are uttered. And by 
always thinking, the kind and cheerful thoughts you have 
already accumulated, grow richer in value while their 
power for hatching happiness goes on and on. 

By always thinking, the mistake that you make to-day 
will not be the mistake you make to-morrow. And by 
always thinking you will most materially reduce the 
total number of mistakes you make. 

By always thinking you need have little concern as to 
your life station. Your progress—no matter where you 
are—will be steady and permanent. 

Little Devils 

Y OUR real enemies are your little Devils—those 
silent, unseen little fellows in the garbs of gloomy 
and sulky moods, fear, gossip, lying, mistrust, dis¬ 
couragement, cynicism—that hang to your heels and fol¬ 
low you, irritate you—madden you. These are they who 
block your success every minute you allow them around. 

Your biggest task each day is to start by ridding your¬ 
self of your little Devils. 

[2] 





Take It 


For each, in its turn, if but given an inch, will seek to 
take a mile. The little bad mood Devil that takes you 
into your day with a grouch over some trivial dispute or 
happening, or the shrug shoulder Devil that seeks to cast 
a slur upon a character, or the mistrust little Devil that 
impudently sits at conference when your independence 
and judgment are at stake—away with them. Their in¬ 
creasing powers sap and suck at your very life blood. 

Your biggest task each day is to start by ridding your¬ 
self of your little Devils. 

Do not allow your little Devils to deceive you. They 
wear false faces. They smile smoothly. Also, they 
speak softly—ofttimes. Ever be on guard. They are 
bound to follow you from place to place. But if you 
are big enough, if you are brave and calm enough—ever 
self-controlled—your little Devils might as well as not 
exist, as far as you are concerned—for you won’t be able 
to see them, and they won’t be able to see you. 

Rain 

M UCH of the most profound in life is expressed 
in the rain that we always seek to avoid but 
hardly to study. 

What pictures of our moods in the rain drops! Now 
slowly, silently falling into a dark and gloomy day; then, 
in torrents, with fierce, cruel-like force beating its life 
toVvard the earth; and again at other times, gently drop¬ 
ping, colored and flickering from the soft rays of the 
Sun, all the beauty and glory of Nature joining in its 
frolic. 

Rain—how human you are! 

[3] 





Take It 


Every time you complain about the rain, stop long 
enough to realize what an uninteresting and discourag¬ 
ing old world this would be without the rain. 

How fresh and clean and happy the whole Earth about 
us looks after its face has been washed by the rain. 
There can hardly be too much rain. But there can easily 
and plainly be too little. 

Sometimes it even seems as though the rain was God’s 
way of talking to people and to the birds and the flowers. 
For everybody and everything seems to smile and 
brighten after the rain has passed. 

So, be glad when it rains. And let it pour, if it wants 
to. You can’t help it and you can’t change it. And be¬ 
sides, have you ever thought you could run the weather 
business better than the One—whoever He is—who has 
always run it ? 

Enforced Intimacies 

T HE things that we can’t help and must bear and 
experience, call for no defense. So that every 
ounce of energy and every effort in fuss and 
fume over the existence of such things is just that much 
power taken away, burned up, and stolen from what we 
might put to big use. One of the great sources of an¬ 
noyance to the little human beings of this earth is the 
enforced intimacies that we are all called upon at some 
time to face. So that we might just as well now as then, 
sooner or later— 

Learn to bear the unwelcome gracefully. 

How many a busy business man is called upon to bear 
the enforced intimacies of people he once knew but who 
never rose above the mediocre. And how many times 
[ 4 ] 





Take It 


they bear down upon him with their little ideas and shat¬ 
tered ideals and unthinking minds—satisfied only in forc¬ 
ing their intimacies toward him to gnaw at his time and 
patience. How few among us there are big enough and 
strong enough to cope with such assassinators of effort 
and achievement. How few of us— 

Learn to bear the unwelcome gracefully. 

The greatest shrine of the human soul is the home, and 
into which there are constantly being thrust enforced 
intimacies that bite at the even tenure of home life. 
But even here the forces of the mind may be mustered 
to cope with the situation and every annoyance of the 
intimacy thrust under cover. To-day you may be forced 
to face the annoyance of enforced intimacy. If you are, 
face it gracefully and graciously and let your life mirror 
the sort of strength and control that always marks the 
big individual. 

Good Losers 

S OMETIMES those who fail—win. There is some¬ 
thing big and fine and inspiring about a good 
loser. 

No one ever wins all the time. 

The three hundred brave men at the pass of Thermo¬ 
pylae who saw certain failure rushing fast upon them 
unto their death, never flinched, never faltered—but lost 
—finally to win on into the centuries and to inspire mil¬ 
lions to big deeds and big sacrifices. 

No one ever wins all the time. 

But the fields of battle can never corner the heroic 
actions of the world. The everyday has her victories, 
her heroes and heroines—in the home, at the office 
[ 5 ] 






Take It 


everywhere. And here it is that we daily applaud the 
good losers as well as the winners. For— 

No one ever wins all the time. 

Baseball is one of the greatest sports of all times. 
Poor in something is the man or woman who does not 
appreciate this game. Daily, as fine a bunch of good 
losers as ever walked or breathed is revealed on the base¬ 
ball diamond. One of the finest examples in all base¬ 
ball of a good loser was the great pitcher, Christy 
Mathewson, of the New York Giants. He was one 
pitcher that every'spectator always liked to see win. 
For when he lost—he was a good loser. He always took 
his medicine with a smile, thereby making character 
alongside baseball history. 

No one ever wins all the time. 

So, be a good loser always. Smile it out, and grit it 
out. Your chance will come again. Perhaps the very 
next time you will be a winner. You surely will be if 
you are a good loser now. 


Relationship 



COMMON ownership runs the race. And there 


is nothing so comforting as to realize that what 


^ belongs to each of us quite as much belongs to 
everybody. 

The house you think you own, your lands, your busi¬ 
ness, your books, your jewels—your all. In reality, these 
are only yours on loan. You can’t take them with you 
when you quit this earth. Somebody will take them up 
where you left them, and after them, some one else, and 
so on. Even the applause given you to-day will be 
handed to some one else to-morrow. 


[6] 





Take It 


Even you belong to some one else. Your efforts to¬ 
ward success and happiness cannot turn solely to you. 
No man loves isolation. It would finally break the hard¬ 
est heart. 

Relationship makes Folks possible. No one is so 
happy as when he is doing something to make some one 
else happy. If you doubt this statement put it to the 
test and learn for yourself. If you are greatly gifted, 
share those gifts and you will presently realize that your 
gifts have enlarged. For it is only by giving away that 
you are able to get. 

The next time you feel like getting the best of the 
other fellow, bear in mind that that chap is related to 
you. That fact will make a difference worth consider¬ 
ing. 

Think this over, you, whoever you are. We all have 
something in common. Our Faces all look something 
alike. We laugh and weep and get stirred up over about 
the same things. There isn’t very much difference be¬ 
tween any of us, after all. So I think that if you can 
stand me, I can stand you, and be mighty glad that there 
IS a relationship, rich and fine, and healthy, between us. 

Sense of Humor 

I F you have a sense of humor, you have one of the 
greatest weapons against failure or morbidity that 
is possible to be given you. 

What is a sense of humor ? It’s this—seeing the funny 
side to a thing when there is no funny side! The ordi¬ 
nary human being would grow irritated under such a 
situation. But the man with a sense of humor—never. 
[ 7 ] 





Take It 


The man with a sense of humor softens the great 
problems of his life and clears the atmosphere about him¬ 
self—and accomplishes wonders for the readers of his¬ 
tory to marvel at. “Will this man never be serious,” said 
Secretary Chase, after a visit to the White House for a 
conference with President Lincoln. “I go to speak with 
him of a great financial matter and he turns it all into a 
funny story!” But Lincoln is remembered and revered 
and Chase is forgotten, excepting that he was the great 
man’s Secretary of the Treasury. 

Cultivate deeply within you a genuine sense of humor. 
And if you can’t feel that you have it, play that you have 
it. 

Your Two Men 

E ACH of us is a make-up of some part of Eternity. 
Walking, working, breathing, eating, thinking— 
we strike off life notes, each tremendous in its 
bearing upon history and Eternity according to its origin. 

And the origin of each life note is somewhere started 
by some impulse within one of your two men. 

George Gray Barnard, the sculptor, has brought out 
the idea marvelously in his group—“I feel two natures 
struggling within me.” One man stands above the other 
—each struggling for supremacy. 

In like manner everything you do is a command from 
one of your two men. 

You have a noble impulse. Your good man commands. 
Almost as instantly your evil man gives his command. 
What you do is the story of which one of your two men 
rules in you. Ever the conflict goes on. You are your 
two men. 

[8] 





Take It 


But which of your two men, actually, does the world 
know you to BE ? Which one is your true self ? 

Suggestions About Suggestion 

W E usually do the things we think about doing if 
we think hard enough. The whole world is run 
by suggestion. The day draws its curtain back 
but the sky says rain. So, therefore, the foolish human 
says “a bad day” and proceeds to live “the bad day.” 

Gruffly and growlingly you stumble into a beautiful 
day. And when you meet the smilers and cheerers along 
the way, exit the gruff and the growl. 

Every time you do a good thing or a bad thing its 
atmosphere influences somebody else to do the same 
thing. So tremendous is suggestion that it matters not 
whether you use the suggestion yourself or whether you 
hand the suggestion to somebody else, for suggestions 
are never idlers. 

You can shape and rule your suggestions. They are 
forged as you think. Your brain is your suggestion shop. 
Healthy brain—healthy suggestion. Diseased brain—dis¬ 
eased suggestion. 

If you want to be happy, BE happy. If you want to 
be successful, BE successful. Whatever you want to be 
and whatever you long to be, live and you will BE. 

The Right Thing 

T HE way to do the right thing is to ignore the 
wrong thing. The right and wrong in people and 
things is there because we see them. Right and 
wrong have to have a viewpoint at the other end. You 
[ 9 ] 





Take It 


can’t do the right thing and the wrong thing at the same 
time. So—■ 

Do the right thing—first. 

For just as soon as you begin to do the right thing, 
the wrong thing walks off. It is inspiring to note the 
way a big, successful man’s brain works. An important 
problem is placed before him. Immediately, without 
parley, his keen, trained mind goes to the heart of the 
thing. He decides to do the right thing—he doesn’t even 
consider the wrong thing. 

Do the right thing—first. 

For if you do the right thing first, there will be no 
need to do the thing any other way. One of the truest 
reasons why we do not always do our best is that we 
are afraid we will do our worst, whereas the moment we 
decide that there shall be no worst, we do our best. Put 
it down in your book of action, to— 

Do the right thing—first. 

What’s the Odds 

W HEN Emerson advised people to hitch their 
wagon to a star, he undoubtedly meant for them 
to hook up to a certainty. For a star, being 
fixed and placed according to a marvelous law, must of 
necessity represent the striving of a man toward the main 
chance—and in which useless trivialities cannot count. 

So, never mind if repulses come—what’s the odds—so 
long as you clearly see—the goal? 

Much of the daily inspiration of every forceful char¬ 
acter comes about through the habitual smiling off of the 
myriad little irritations, annoyances and criticisms that 
[ 10 ] 





Take It 


cloud the path of such a one. What’s the odds ? That’s 
the medicine that works as life’s grand antidote to you 
who whistlingly conquer as you go. 

Don’t slow up your wagon at the mud holes—it might 
stick! 

Sure—you have detractors—“knockers.” But what’s 
the odds? The other fellow has just passed you. But, 
Oh, what’s the odds—so long as you are not disheartened 
and still hopefully “plug on?” The runner who holds 
the lead at the three-quarter point does not always touch 
the finish tape first. 


“I Am I” 



HE whole world revolves about the performances 


of each man. Of all the numberless creations 


daily added to the history of life, the creation of 
each man alone forms the only absolutely NEW note to 
progress. So that out of the mind and consciousness of 
each man alone must burst the thoughts, ideas and won¬ 
derments from which the world may pride its onward 
stride. In fact— 

You, alone, may say—“I Am I.” 

Your individuality or personality, separately is able to 
add to the total sum of grandeur on this earth. For it is 
NEW! You are cast from an original mould. None 
other will ever be cast from it again. What you are is 
above price. You are able to be your own great inspira¬ 
tion. Your solitary figure, grandly alone, is able in silent 
conference and consideration, to rise nobly, mustering 
meanwhile the strength-hidden forces that await to call 
you Master. For— 

You, alone, may say—“I Am I.” 


[ 11 ] 





Take It 


Work is not a transitory affair. Ambition, effort, en¬ 
thusiasm, suffering, disappointment, happiness—these are 
not fleeting, but specimens of fulfillment. You are these. 
Just as the ink gives realization to the thought behind 
the pen, so out of yourself comes yourself—the expres¬ 
sion of what is deep WITHIN you. Whereas the daily 
accumulation of what you think, feel, act, becomes the 
ideal of what you are. Let this simple thought close in 
upon you and make you a worker to-day of which the 
oncoming race may well be proud, remembering the while, 
that— 

You, alone, may say—“I Am I.” 

Age 

I T is only as we recognize the minute upon minute, 
hour upon hour, day upon day, philosophy of Time 
that we are able to enter into the serious lesson that 
age has for us all. For age has no philosophy excepting 
the philosophy of accomplishment, as it matures. Even as 
you think, you age. And yet in aging you are able to 
realize the full meaning of every breath that you breathe 
and of every single effort you make. 

In the Sunset is reviewed the glory of the day. 

Age is experience—crystallized. Age is initiative— 
worked out. Age is the dream—come true. Age is the 
tree—full grown. Age is the business successful—a 
power in its area. What you are is the sum of your 
days in age—averaged. 

In your success is reflected the product of every one 
of your hours. 

Age is not the mere piling up of years, for many a man 
[ 12 ] 





Take It 


is old at thirty, and many a man is young at eighty. For 
youth is as elastic as age, and age is as elastic as youth. 
Let the experience of age be a teacher to you. Let it 
admonish as well as encourage you. 

Be Game 

W HEREVER red blood flows, admiration starts 
at the picture of a game man—a being who 
sticks to his guns, loading and reloading in the 
face of the enemy, without flinching, and calmly taking 
his lot. 

Be Game. 

Adverse forces always present their strongest front 
in the beginning. Be game. Stand your ground. Out¬ 
wit and outweigh the best of them. 

Be Game. 

But don’t wait for emergencies to test you out. Be 
game to-day. There will be plenty of chances if you 
use the initiative, planted in your system, to search out 
for something in which to make your abilities count for 
the most. For there is a call for game men in ordinary, 
everyday affairs. And if you are game in the little things 
you will be game in the big things. 

Be Game. 

I Know 

I KNOW that this day will never come again. There¬ 
fore I will make it the best day in which I have ever 
lived. 

I know that happiness is a thing within and that it is 
always in the world and very near to me. I know I 
[ 13 ] 





Take It 


have but to search for it, and that as soon as I begin to 
hunt it out, I have it. Also, I know that as soon as I 
get happiness and begin to give it away, it comes back 
doubled—and more, to me. I know this. 

I know that work is a stimulus and that it keeps the 
world alive and moving. I know that the people who 
work with love in their hearts and interest in their brains 
are the real doers and benefactors of mankind. I know 
that I can be a doer and a benefactor. 

I know that life is exactly what I make it. I know that 
other people and other forces can influence my life and 
work only as I allow it. I know that I am young if I 
live youth; I know that I am happy if I live happiness; 
I know that I am worth while if I attempt and accom¬ 
plish worth while things. 

I know that the greatest thing I can ever do is to do 
my best at all times, and under every circumstance. 


But 


F all the useless word barriers ever coined,— 



“But” takes precedence. Grammarians call it an 


adversative conjunction. It is all of this and 
more. When put to work and into life, it typifies obstruc¬ 
tion and inaction. 

Here’s the way it works. I feel fine—But. Every¬ 
thing is all right—But. I would have accomplished a lot 
I set out to do—But. I’ll do it—But. Like a wet blan¬ 
ket, like a slap in the face,—But seeks to dampen the 
very ardor of one’s Soul and to squeeze out the last full 
drop of hope and endeavor inside one’s heart. 

Muster the forces of your character and dismiss— 


[ 14 ] 






Take It 


“But” from your service. Just drop it—that’s all. Here’s 
the way it will work then. I feel fine. Everything is 
all right. I will accomplish a lot I set out to do. I’ll DO 
it. 

Failure is the father of “—But.” Success and achieve¬ 
ment never heard of the word. If you have ever heard 
of it—forget it—without delay. 

C. O. D. 

B Y all odds the greatest rule in business is the C. O. 
D. rule—Cash On Delivery. Sounds perfectly 
sensible and just, doesn’t it? Did you ever hear 
of a concern going bankrupt where it had something to 
offer the public of real merit with a demand for it and 
where this principle of C. O. D. was strictly adhered to? 

C. O. D. means service rendered for which there is 
given immediate value in return. 

C. O. D. suggests a philosophy of life. It is this. 
Forget rewards for service given; work not for the re¬ 
sult, but be convinced that in well doing the result takes 
care of itself; when you hand over happiness to some 
one else the very act returns happiness to you. Con¬ 
scientious service is always paid for, in some way or 
other. Be not deceived in this. It is as true as the 
law of Day and Night. 

C. O. D. means success here and now, undeferred. 
As* soon as you give—you get. 


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Enemies 

Y OU are known and judged quite as much by the 
kind of enemies you make as by the kind of friends 
you have. 

Choose your enemies. 

Many a man has been handicapped by having some 
one else choose his enemies for him. For enemies must 
needs come to every forceful character, sooner or later. 
And if you do the choosing of your enemies, you know 
the kind you have to deal with. 

Choose your enemies. 

Another strong point about choosing your own ene¬ 
mies, is that you can study them to better advantage than 
if some one else chose them for you and acted as coach 
to them. For many a man, by close application to the 
study of his enemies, can finally make them his friends! 
Choose your enemies. 

Enemies have the most to do with, and cluster most 
around those who are positive and definite as doers. To 
have big plans and important work to perform and to 
go ahead with it without fear or favor, is to create 
enemies from somewhere. But enemies never come 
around unless you become effective and monumental in 
your efforts. Then the enemies get busy. 

Choose your enemies. 

But not for a single moment allow the work of your 
enemies to deter you from your forward fight. Accept 
them as a matter of course, never allowing yourself to 
get to their level. For then they may swoop down upon 
you to bewilder and defeat you. 

Choose your enemies. 

And remember that by always remaining bigger than 
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Take It 


your enemies, you pave a path over which they may 
finally walk as your friends. 


Credo 


BELIEVE in the infallibility of success, the dignity 
of work and the inspiration of achievement. 



I Believe* that I have certain powers and abilities 
gifted to me alone. I Believe that I am directly respon¬ 
sible for their development and full fruition. 1 Believe 
that no one is able to turn me from my determined path 
excepting myself. 

I Believe that fear is misunderstanding, that perfect 
knowledge and complete confidence in myself is sure to 
eliminate fear from my life. 

I Believe in the acknowledgement of error—that it is 
manly to change my mind as often as I am convinced 
that by so doing I am made right with myself, with 
people and the world. I Believe in facing my mistakes 
and learning from them. 

I Believe in the human-ness of friendship. I Believe 
in smiles, in cheer. I Believe in forgiving, in forgetting 
and in remembering—in forgiving personal injuries, un¬ 
intentional blunders—in forgetting the unpleasant and 
unavoidable, and in remembering every good and noble 
thing. 

7 Believe in the immediate rewards of service and in 
the satisfaction that clothes and feeds worthy deeds. I 
Believe in the Eternity of Influence—that there is a 
certain Hereafter for everything that I do. I Believe in 
the Law of present Compensation. 

I Believe in the glory of solitude where a man may 


[ 17 ] 





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review and take invoice on what he has done. I Believe 
in thoroughness and in efficiency as mental stimulators. 
I Believe in honesty and squareness. I Believe that I 
am about as big as I do. I Believe in the common kin¬ 
ship of human beings and that what I have for you is 
immediately changeable for what you have for me. I 
Believe in the Democracy of Service. 

Secret History 

W OULD that the secret history of the world might 
be written—that history that has to do with the 
men and women who work and decently strive 
that not only both ends may meet, but that all ends may 
meet. 

The great things in every town are done by those who 
hold within their breast no hope for reward excepting 
the glory that is sure to follow the consciousness of ser¬ 
vice worked out to the best of one’s ability. 

Visible history is inspiring, but secret history, if re¬ 
vealed as it is, would positively and divinely ennoble. 

There must always be leaders, but no leaders would 
be needed if there were no followers. 

The fact that the record of your deeds is not pasted 
upon billboards, and recorded in newspapers and books, 
should hold no envious thorn anywhere in your con¬ 
scious flesh. The fact that you daily make life more 
livable and less arduous is something to be happy over. 
For it is a part of the secret history of the world that 
is being recorded, though maybe not to be published. 
The mass of humanity is what counts. 

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The Believe Ins 

T HE salt of this earth is made up from those who 
believe in—YOU. Your life is strangely impor¬ 
tant, you are a figure worth considering, you are a 
grand human possibility, if scattered here and there, are 
those whose silent confidence and trust, will find you 
though the shadow of failure shut you totally away from 
yourself and the crowd. For it’s the Believe Ins that 
are responsible for all fine successes. 

So long as you have the Believe Ins, your immortal 
success is safe. 

Genuineness is greater than genius. The most stupen¬ 
dous fortune is cheap beside a real Believe In. No mat¬ 
ter where you go nor what you do, if your worth de¬ 
serves it, your Believe Ins are sure to follow you and cast 
a spell of magic power about you, like unto “troops of 
beautiful tall Angels.’ , You are secure. For— 

So long as you have the Believe Ins, your immortal 
success is safe. 

Who are the Believe Ins? Why! You know. They 
are the Mothers, the Wives, the Brothers, the Sisters, 
the Sweethearts, the Friends, the Employers, ofttimes 
the uncrowned Kings and Queens that reign everywhere 
—those who tell you you have won when you feel that 
you have failed, those who whisper cheer to you when 
you think all cheer is gone, those who smile into your 
very heart and stream it with Sunlight, after you have 
drawn every blind. The Believe Ins! They are the 
inspirers of your solid faith. 

Also, my Believe Ins are the inspirers of this unpre¬ 
tending little talk. 

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I Would Rather 

I WOULD rather— 

Be a plain Friend, valued, trusted, honored and 
held at all times unquestioned in my motives—just 
loved and believed in—than to have all the wealth of the 
richest, or all the fame of the most famous. Wouldn’t 
you? 

I would rather— 

Do my Work to-day, humble and plain though it be, 
so long as I do it honestly and courageously and effi¬ 
ciently, and enter a report at its close that represents 
the best of which I am capable, than to be given the 
handling of large affairs and feel at the end of my day 
that I had slighted here and there and that the impor¬ 
tance of the job had taken from me my feeling of re¬ 
sponsibility and torn away those little attentions that 
make the finished job right. Wouldn’t you? 

I would rather— 

Have a Character that at all times would represent 
courageous service performed, and helpfulness put afloat 
wherever its influence might touch, than to have all the 
acclaim that might follow in the wake of mere reputa¬ 
tion or hereditary honor, which might be shattered in a 
single day by some single stroke of fortune. Wouldn’t 
you? 

I would rather— 

Be a Believer in the ultimate great reward for all 
service and in absolute goodness as a permeating force 
among men, than to be a doubter and a questioner and 
thus lose the hourly joy and happiness that never fails 
to enter the life and very soul of the man who has the 
courage to believe. Wouldn’t you? 

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Waste-Basket It 

T HE useful things in this world are the working 
things. If your day isn’t clear and clean—if 
details clutter it—concentrate for a brief period. 
One by one decide on the essentials and get them into 
their proper place. But just the minute you reach a use¬ 
less detail that you can find no place for—waste-basket it. 
Either do the thing that faces you—or waste-basket it. 
Waste-baskets were invented to take care of the use¬ 
less. Learn to look a duty or proposition or written 
problem squarely in the face and decide its relative value 
immediately. If it is worth while, care for it without 
fuss or fume; if it looks useless, do not tabulate or file 
it away—waste-basket it. 

Either do the thing that faces you—or waste-basket it. 
If you have a mind that is free from the considera¬ 
tion of “unfinished business,” you have a mind powerful 
and quick working—a veritable fortress, back of which 
you may safely go and lodge, assured that there you 
will find ammunition sufficient to win the fiercest battle. 
So, mind this, that you— 

Either do the thing that faces you—or waste-basket it. 

Twilight 

O NE of the most inspiring divisions of the day is 
twilight—just as the day is closing in and the 
labors of men are about over and when sleep and 
rest begin to beckon. Then it is that twilight appeals to 
the serious mind, to review the day, to sum it up and to 
take its average. 

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Review the work of your day at twilight. 

By going over and summing up what you have gained 
and what you have lost you are able to see on which 
side your balance is—whether the day has been wholly 
lost or largely gained. It is only through the most con¬ 
stant and persistent reviewing of what we do that we 
learn to do better later on. 

Twilight suggests solitude and solitude suggests that a 
man put his thoughts to work. 

Talk to yourself at twilight and if you have important 
ideas to confide to others, confide them at twilight, after 
the worries and annoyances of the day are over, and 
when there is a chance for deliberation and calm judg¬ 
ment. Also, walk during the twilight. It will ease and 
cheer you. 

Learn during the hours of twilight. 


Love 



OVE is the greatest word in any language—be¬ 


cause it means more than any other word. It is 


elemental. It is something felt, though impossible 
to define—something known though unseen. Love is al¬ 
ways a journeying. 

Love is Cumulative. 

The greatest argument ever presented for belief in 
God is the one written briefly that “God is love.” 

Love is Universal. 

Love a man and he at once becomes your friend and 
would likely lay down his life for you; love a worthy 
cause and at once the cause becomes your life and you 
would sacrifice your fondest dreams in its favor; love 


[ 22 ] 





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your work and the sordid in life disappears and is gone 
as the dew disappears under the heat of the early sun. 

Love is Unselfish. 

If there is love left, somewhere, then hope is there 
and no matter what the disaster, the vital germs of joy 
and success remain. If some one still loves you or you 
still love some one, hopelessness for you must die. For 
the light of love is the light of life, because— 

Love is Life. 

Love your friends, love your work, love your lot in 
life, love nature, love everything that is, for back of 
everything that is, is a divine purpose—itself reflecting 
love. 

Love is All! 

Fit In 

O NE of the most common traits of the successful 
man is that of adjustability—the knack of know¬ 
ing just how to fit in. If misfortune comes along 
—alright—he immediately fits in. If good fortune shows 
its nose and then comes to stay—alright—he quickly 
shakes hands—and fits in. 

Fit in. 

Fit in—right where you are. 

Fit in. 

And if you somehow can’t fit in, the best possible move 
fgr you is to quickly get out from where you are and 
find some place where you can fit in. A misfit man or 
woman is a tragedy. A poor worker in a good place is 
exactly as ’bad as a good worker in a poor place. There 
is only one right condition and that is a good worker in a 
good place. 

[ 23 ] 





Take It 


Fit in. 


Many a human allows himself to think that he is a 
misfit when in reality if he would but carefully think 
the whole thing out, he would come to realize his folly 
and change his thinking and become a real fit—perhaps 
“just the man for the job.” 


Fit in. 


If happenings appear to be against you, fit in anyway. 
If you happen to be thrown among those of a different 
race, or temperament or whatnot—make this a rule—fit 
in. For the time being, at least. 


Fit in. 


Suppose the weather does spoil your plans. Mind not 
—fit in. 


Almost 



LMOST may be one of the saddest or one of the 


most encouraging words in the language—saddest 


if you almost win and then give up—but intensely 
encouraging if you almost fail and don’t give up. 

Almost a winner is good—but it doesn’t win the race. 

This world is full of people who became almost great. 
They fight their way on and up, but just at the moment 
they are about to come into their full and justified pos¬ 
sessions they begin to lose heart and to slip back. 

With you, let it be not almost—but wholly. 

There are scores of people who almost fail—but don’t. 
They are the people who make up the bone and sinew 
of this world—the people who are never whipped, never 
defeated, never wholly and completely discouraged. 

Never quit a good proposition or a right cause be¬ 
cause it is almost lost. 


[ 24 ] 





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Spuzz 

S PUZZ is a new-born word. It has never visited a 
single dictionary. But its spirit has long ruled and 
raised to real success the thrilling career of many 
an achiever. For spuzz is fire, force, courage, action— 
the confident atmosphere back of a winning Will. 

A FINE thing is spuzz. 

Spuzz, on friendly terms with the millions of little 
cells that busy your brain; spuzz, hardby, warming and 
cheering the heart; spuzz, duty gripped, hourly steadying 
the eye, controlling the tongue, and guiding the hands and 
the steps—if there’s spuzz, and spuzz aplenty, in and 
around, through and through—then you can smile, Oh 
human worker, and have no fear. You are armed. You 
are fortified. You are safely secured. No enemy can 
conquer your spirit. 

A WONDERFUL thing is spuzz. 

The soul of Columbus was spuzz-wrapped. Savon¬ 
arola, Luther, Gladstone, Hugo, Beecher—just write 
down the names of the striking enthusiasts of history 
and you will have made a list of those to whom spuzz 
was as the cartilage to your bones and the blood to the 
arteries that distribute life and strength into your sys¬ 
tem. 

A NECESSARY thing is spuzz. 


[ 25 ] 





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Whistle 

T HE fellow who knows how to whistle—and whis¬ 
tles—is a benefactor to mankind. Whistle. Just 
pucker up your lips—and whistle. Any tune will 
do. But whistle. 

Whistle. 

Whistle the poison out of your soul. Whistle the 
anger and bitterness from your heart. Whistle hope. 
Whistle cheer. Whistle ideals about you. 

Whistle. 

Did you ever hear an unhappy man whistle? Did 
you ever hear an angry man whistle ? Did you ever hear 
a discouraged man whistle? None of these things mix 
with the genuine whistle. Whistle. 

Whistle. 

When you feel failure in your bones—whistle. At 
the moment you start to scold—whistle. Before you be¬ 
gin to burden any one with your troubles—whistle. 
Keep your whistle moist and ready. 

Whistle. 

Whistling is very contagious. As soon as your whistle 
starts, the other fellow’s is apt to begin. Whistle. 
Whistle with your lips and whistle with your heart. 
Whistle out, and whistle up. But whistle, whistle, 
whistle. For whistling makes the difficult things easy, 
and the big things possible. 

Whistle. 


[ 26 ] 





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Crowds 

W E get a better idea of a proposition in its en- 
tirety. We are sure to lose some of the best 
things about a man, for instance, if we center 
our attention upon his weaknesses. In regard to an im¬ 
portant question, if we study only a few, plausible points 
on one side of it, our knowledge of that question is worse 
than entire ignorance. So it is with the lesson taught by 
the crowd. But studying it as a whole, you come to know 
the individual people who make it up. 

In a crowd you are but one—and yet, such as you make 
the crowd. 

The organized crowd teaches sympathy, enthusiasm, 
team-work—and it embodies power that is inspiring. If 
you want to feel your real importance, get into a great 
crowd. For, subdued and unknown, there is chance for 
play of the finest sentiments in your character. 

But a crowd cannot make the big man smaller nor the 
small man bigger. 

In its final analysis the crowd is always human, made 
up wholly of human beings. The strong man stalks big 
because he is big, and the crowd could not take away 
from his power if it would. The big man is big because 
of his knowledge of the crowd and the crowd’s desires 
and the crowd’s feeling; whereas the small, unimportant 
and uncaring man is immediately lost in the crowd. 

In your daily endeavor, let the thought that you are 
df the crowd, making up life itself, lead you into service 
for the crowd. 


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Little Fellows 

E VEN the biggest of men is after all but a little 
fellow. And great as is this wonderful Earth, it 
is but a small one among millions of other worlds. 
Placed against the greatest, we are all but little fellows. 

But this fact should all the more impress you with 
the importance of being somebody, somewhere—in some¬ 
thing. 

For the more you think of your littleness, the surer 
you are to be little. But the more you realize that the 
vast greatness of this world is but an agency to make you 
great, then will you surely become great. 

Neither your self pity nor your self conceit is able to 
do any good thing for you. 

Daily, great heights you must climb, though realizing 
it not, except in consciously increasing power, and sure 
and steady footing. Working as a little fellow, the 
world sees you as a stalking figure, and the bigness of the 
big things of the world breathes back of what it is—for 
you. 

So, forget that you are a little fellow. BE Big! 

Hate is Waste 

I F love is the greatest good thing in the world, then 
hate is the greatest evil thing in the world. For hate 
is the opposite of love. Love warms, hate freezes. 
Love attracts, hate repels. Love is life, hate is death. 

Hate is the worst waste that can possibly enter a hu¬ 
man soul. 

Love fills, nourishes and prospers both the lover and 
[ 28 ] 




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the loved. But hate tears and wastes everything that 
it touches in the life of the hater and the hated. Hate is 
poverty—impoverished. When you think about hating 
any one, pause long enough to feel its poisonous sting 
creep through your own being and the chances are then 
that you will chase it from your life. 

Hate always hurts the hater most—for in many cases 
the hated is big enough not to let the hate in. 

Don’t let hate get to you to-day. And if you have 
sent it out at any day to any one, go and find where it 
went and take it back and bury it. 

Your Under-Dogs 

O UR sympathies naturally travel the line of likes—• 
that is, the things we feel in ourselves, we feel in 
others. We applaud the under-dog, because we 
so often have BEEN the under-dog. We like to lift the 
other fellow up when he is down, because we also have 
been down. Sympathy starts at home—or else it isn’t 
sympathy. 

Your periodic moods of failure and disappointment are 
your under-dogs. 

So, instead of walking past these under-dogs of yours 
and casting no sympathy their way, pause to give them 
your heart and your hope, and soon the picture and fact 
will be your over-dogs—your victories and your genuine 
achievements. 

No under-dogs can possibly appeal in importance to 
the under-dogs of your daily experiences. 

Perhaps you will applaud alone the under-dogs of your 
personal glooms and shadows, but what of it? As 
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Lowell says: “daily, with souls that cringe and plot, we 
Sinais climb and know it not.” What difference, what 
odds, so long as over your “manhood bend the skies?” 
And inside your heart great world-ideas stir! 

Courageously cheer the under-dogs of your experi¬ 
ences and stay proudly by them until their fight becomes 
a factor of your Kingship. 

Aching Bones 

U NTO the tired is immense comfort. Rewards, 
wealth, fame, applause, migrate the way of the 
human whose bones know how to ache. Bone 
ache is something to be proud of. For it means effort put 
forth, thought physically performed. The bones of idlers 
never ache, except through disuse. 

The whole world vibrates from the aching bones of 
its workers. There’s the mother after the day at her tub 
and in her home, soothing the aches with a lap of boy 
or girl, the soil tiller after his long day in the field, the 
shop man, the errand boy—oh, there is no end to the 
army of aching bones. They are the salt and sinew of 
the earth. 

But one of the greatest rewards that follow in the 
wake of aching bones is not alone the feeling that work 
has been well wrought, but that then there is time to 
think and meditate. 

For the human brain has no hours. Its doors are 
ever open. Its hearth is ever warm. Just as soon as its 
servants in the body grow tired, it wakes up for romp 
or rigorous task. What a story could be written of the 
achievements, the solved problems, the battles fought and 

r 30 ] 






Take It 


won, while the aching bones almost forgot that they were 
bones! 

Be glad that you have real bones to ache. Be glad that 
real flesh and blood hold them firm and that if you want 
to be a genuine man, you can’t hope to have anything else 
as a result of service. 


Your Pencil 

I HAVE traveled pretty much about the towns and 
cities and country places of this old earth and I have 
sought in vain for a statue to the fellow who in¬ 
vented the pencil. His face and form should be preserved 
in deathless bronze or marble in every cross-roads place 
and in every spot where folks come and go. 

We live and grow through a process of exchange. 
Nobody says anything absolutely new. We just 
change things around, add to, or combine and the world 
gets our viewpoint and our little lesson as a sort of con¬ 
tribution to what it already has. 

And the pencil is the little fellow that trots along with 
us and acts as our secretary and recorder of what others 
thought and what we think. Are you taking advantage 
of your pencil? Do you carry your pencil with you as 
you do your pocket knife or your handful of coins? If 
you don’t, why don’t you? 

There is only one way to read a book and that it with 
your pencil. There is only one way to hear a great mind 
talk and that is with your pencil. There is only one way 
to see the whole world and that is with your pencil. 

A little paper—and your pencil. Take them with you 
everywhere. You are getting but a fraction of what 
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Take It 


may be your? if you allow your mind to wander and roll 
in its bed outside the hours that it is actively and defin¬ 
itely engaged during business or even pleasure. 

Pencil! let’s be friends. 

Fear-Thought 

W E all, sooner or later, learn that the only serious 
fear is self-fear. This world is a very open 
sort of an affair. Harm and disaster is most 
accidental—and of accidents we all most cheerfully await 
our turn, taking them without fear. 

It’s the pesky little things that never could happen, that 
would do little or no harm if they did happen, that make 
us gray haired and nerve rattled. 

Fear is foreign. It has no place in the healthy mind. 
So that the mind that entertains fear gives to a vicious 
robber. 

The measure of your happiness and your success will 
always be in proportion to your ability to laugh at and 
defeat, stingingly, this arch sneak-thief—fear. 

Fear hands out worry, jealousy, suspicion, indifference 
—hatred. And fear knocks in the head every fine, deli¬ 
cate, big-minded affair. 

Once let fear dominate your thought and you might 
as well surrender and hunt up a new house to live in. 

A Day 

N O man can have a greater asset than an ordinary 
day. If you don’t think so, just stop and write 
down the scores of things that can be accom¬ 
plished in a day. Or read history and learn what single 
[ 32 ] 




Take It 


days put there in deeds that thousands of years cannot 
efface. 

You are not very much greater than any one of your 
separate days. For what you are is but the sum of your 
days. 

Since helpfulness to other people is about the biggest 
sort of service that any one can render, if you will but 
make it a practice of your life not to let a day go by that 
does not make somebody else your happy debtor, you 
will begin to realize the joy that a day is able to bring 
forth. 

People delight in the unexpected done for them. 

That letter of encouragement, that human being slap 
on the back that meant sincere sympathy and stand-by- 
edness, that cheer to a stranger, those flowers to the 
living, that whistle that a score or so heard and “knew,” 
that solid, undismayed bearing in a tight place—these 
are the things that every day may be experienced in 
you. 

A day lost is something precious lost forever. 

Prize your days. And don’t be so small as to let a 
little rain in the air, or some little happening spoil or mar 
what you can make out of a day. Be glad that you have 
it and that it is as golden for great results for you as for 
any man that breathes with you. 

Your Opposites 

F ROM the hum-drum, the see-saw and the prattle- 
prattle, kind God, may we daily be delivered. 
And we most ardently pray from our heart of 
hearts that we may not meet them, excepting as we are 
forced to. 

[ 33 ] __ 





Take It 


Every healthy thing in Nature and in Man tends up¬ 
ward. It is the wish and law of life. 

That man is ill who has no desire to grow or to be 
something bigger. And to grow bigger we seek thoughts 
greater than our own and people with ways and achieve¬ 
ments beyond what we have to our credit. It is among 
our opposites that we may always find stimulation and 
catch again what once spurred us on. 

The great fascinate us. Because we see in what they 
have done something of what we are, but have as yet 
not finished—or perhaps even started. 

Throughout a lifetime we pick our heroes and bend 
our thoughts to meet theirs. From the crudest pick 
swinger to his elevated master, the president of the road, 
there lies a series of progression that is duplicated in 
thousands of activities. But we select from the series 
those souls which most nearly strike an opposite to what 
we possess, that we may study and emulate and feed 
upon what we lack. 

Your best and most helpful friends are sure to be 
found among your opposites. You may never know them 
as they really are, but so long as you look for their best, 
they in turn are sure to reveal their best to you, without 
ostentation and free of all dross. 


Who’s Who 

T HERE is one thing that you possess, O, human 
being—you who read this little talk—with which 
the arbitrary selection ability of Blue books, and 
close corporationed Club committees has nothing in com¬ 
mon. It is your personal power of character secrecy. 
[ 34 ] 





Take It 


Most of the people we think we know, we don’t. 

So that our judgment runs criss-cross. And often 
our unknown little people are in reality the world’s big 
people and our known big people are the world’s little 
people. 

It is the big, silent element, which, when fully realized 
inside a man’s soul, gives dignity and calm and makes 
him fit and clean and great—courageous in the face of 
danger, calumny and duty. 

Who’s Who? Why! You are. 

Sometime the Watcher of the World is going to com¬ 
pile a new kind of a Who’s Who book. 

And the name of the man who cuts your shirts as 
well as the name of the woman who washes them, may 
be there. And there will be a glory thrill for the patient 
and plodding, the shut-ins and uncomplainers, as they 
see their names in simple Gothic bold. 

Who’s Who? YOU! Most certainly YOU, who in 
the consciousness and realization of your secret power 
live and express the best that is in you—openly and 
unafraid—and glad of the chance. 

On Borrowing 

E VERY normal human being is started off on his 
journey fully equipped, just the same as a ma¬ 
chine is sold in complete equipment. It is right at 
the start. 

Your total value lies in what you have. 

Of course, if you fail to appreciate the fact and neg¬ 
lect to develop every last possibility within you, you have 
no one to blame but yourself. If you seek to borrow 
[ 35 ] 





Take It 


what you lack or ought to earn you will but weaken your 
entire working forces. 

The only things you can own and control are the 
things that belong to you. 

There is always a freedom attached to the use of 
things that you own. Belonging to you, you are able to 
do with them whatsoever you please. 

Instead of borrowing, accumulate—then give away. 

It is well also to remember that the obligation of re¬ 
paying remains constantly with you. And if you have 
developed and increased in value what you have bor¬ 
rowed, bear in mind that both principal and interest must 
be repaid, leaving you poorer than at the start. 


Hope and Courage 



OU will get the thing you hope for, provided you 


have the courage to back up your hope. Most 


A everybody has the ability to hope. But it’s hope 
and courage that brings things to pass. 

Most of us are all the time hoping—for something. 
Hope is like a powerful engine. It looks fine as it stands 
on its track ready for action. But if the steam isn’t 
turned on, the engine’s beauty counts for nothing. Cour¬ 
age is the steam of hope. 

The brave man hopes on and believes because his 
courage trots along with his hope. 

Hope is the automobile, courage is the gas banging 
away in the cylinders. Hope promises, courage delivers. 
Hope is the man, courage is “the goods” that the man 
delivers. Hope and courage is the man delivering the 
goods. 


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Take It 


If you can hope, that’s fine. But lead out your cour¬ 
age and demand that it keep pace with your hope. 

Millions of human beings have been lost to history be¬ 
cause they were nothing but hopers. But those whom 
we can never forget and whose names and records will 
continue to add lustre and glory to the ages to come are 
the men and women who locked their hope to their cour¬ 
age and did things. 

Hope on—but with courage. 

You’ve Got to Step 

R AIN and trains wait for no man. So, if you want 
to keep dry and if you want to travel on time— 
You’ve got to step. 

Suppose you do stub your toe now and then. Make 
up the time lost by picking yourself up quickly. Then 
get a quick catch of vision on your objective point. For 
if you get there— 

You’ve got to step. 

Is the fellow behind you crowding up and are you get¬ 
ting nervous because you feel he will get your place? 
Well, he will if you don’t keep alert, plug and peg away, 
remembering— 

You’ve got to step. 

Progress moves ahead—it never lags to the rear. You 
never hear of the loafers and the hesitators holding the 
reins and driving the band wagon. So, if you want to 
be among those leading the procession and commanding 
the crowd— 

You’ve got to step. 

[ 37 ] 






Take It 


Bubbles 


HERE is a wonderful lesson in the simple experi¬ 



ence of the child who blows soap bubbles. Each 


of us is but a grown up child. Instead of play¬ 
ing with dolls, we choose human tasks, when we are 
grown, to play with. And instead of actual soap bub¬ 
bles, we seek out jobs and problems, many of which re¬ 
solve themselves into nothing more nor less than soap 
bubbles. 

The man that takes hold on tasks without any set plan 
back of them or without any purpose for doing them is 
blowing soap bubbles—which are sure to pop with noth¬ 
ing accomplished. 

To realize how true this is, look about you. See the 
thousands who are really potentially able men and women 
in middle life, who are doing the work of beginners— 
blowing bubbles—bubble after bubble. 

Here and there you see fellows with energy and en¬ 
thusiasm, that start off like a whirlwind, but after a while 
settle back with nothing accomplished. Everything has 
gone up in bubbles! 

Remember that it is Children who blow bubbles, but 
it is Men and Women who do the work of the world. 


On Following 


I T is sometimes a greater test of supreme character to 
follow than to lead. 

The story is told of an officer in the army of the 
Duke of Wellington who bitterly complained at taking a 
command which he considered beneath his merit. Turn- 


[ 38 ] 





Take It 


ing to him, the Iron Duke exclaimed: “In the course of 
my military career, I have gone from the command of a 
brigade to that of my regiment, and from the command 
of an army to that of a brigade or division, as I was 
ordered, and without any feeling of mortification.” 

Not to follow, promptly and gladly, when ordered to 
do so, whether by your superior or inferior in merit—or 
by your individual conscience—is for you to shrink in 
dignity and honor. 

For how are you to invite and enforce discipline and 
service if you refuse to accept it yourself? Sooner or 
later we come to feel that self-love, after all, is but a 
species of self-robbery—that the moment we fail to fit 
into the places that the moment asks us to fit into—we 
ingloriously dedicate our abilities and powers to some 
one else who is ready and willing to follow—without 
whimpering or whining. 

The greatest leader that ever lived was but a great 
follower. Leadership is but putting into practice what 
a man has felt as a follower. 


Gigmen 

“I always considered him a respectable man. What do you 
mean by respectable? He kept a Gig.”—Thurtell’s Trial. 

A S this old world jogs along, it may well strut and 
smile—for it is truly progressing. The test of 
respectability no longer is measured by the rule of 
the gigmen. The world isn’t half as interested in what 
you have as in what you are. 

Have you a gig, a motor car, estates, bonds, stocks— 
[ 39 ] 





Take It 


what not? Well, no matter. They can neither add nor 
detract from your respectability. 

You can’t see respectability—you have to FEEL it. 
Just the same as you have to feel truth and joy and 
heroism. But respectability in other people does not 
make respectability in you. No, not even though you 
walk on the same side of the street with it. 

Let no gig fancy get you. Let the gigmen take their 
way. Know that respectability travels fast and far and 
at the last “sticketh closer than a brother.” 

Stiff Starched 

W HAT an incongruity of interests there are among 
people. We look at and examine each other as 
though each, excepting ourself, made up some 
strange race entirely alien to us. We forget that as a 
matter of fact, with such an attitude toward people, we 
ourselves are veritable stiff-starched humans with our 
blood flowing edgewise. 

The whole world grows akin when you see every other 
man and woman as contributing something to you. 

How quickly we unbend to those whose good fortune, 
or circumstances or blood or condition may perchance 
creep into our area of activity and contribute something 
to us unawares. How many money friends, circum¬ 
stance friends, blood friends, and such like there are, 
any one of whom if called to service at a time when 
these things would count, would immediately, as though 
encased in stiff-starched wrappings, present themselves 
as inhumans. 

O man, O woman, whoever you are and wherever you 
[ 40 ] 





Take It 


are, whatever you do, see that you art not stiff-starched. 
Keep your soul cordial and let people warm their hearts 
in it. 

Rags and Bran 

W HAT a lot of people prefer working over and 
over again what somebody else has already 
worked to death. How many there are who 
would rather take a lot of rags and make a rag rug than 
to begin at the source of things and make wonderful 
things of the cloth which serves great usefulness before 
its time for rags comes. And how many would rather 
wait for the bran than to raise the wheat? 

There isn’t a great business nor a great city that 
doesn’t contain its rags and bran people—who consume 
without creating. 

A certain type of people seem to rejoice in saying how 
limited the opportunities of this time are, while as a 
matter of fact, with every invention and every new 
created method, there is opened up a veritable world of 
new opportunities if only people would see them. Don’t 
let any one convince you that one ounce of your power 
is lessened through the coming on of changes wrought 
through circumstances. 

There must be rags and there must be bran, but you 
be among the ones who go to the source of things for 
your work. 


[ 41 ] 





Take It 


Bridges 

B RIDGES were built to be used when needed. But 
no on can possibly cross a bridge until he reaches 
it. Take the material sense of this and it is simple 
and plain. But take the matter as a moral principle of 
conduct, and consider what a large proportion of us insist 
on crossing our bridges, sometimes years before we reach 
them. Then when we do reach them, often the bridge is 
not there to cross. 

Make it your rule never to cross a bridge until you 
know there is a bridge to cross. 

And when you know that the bridge is there, forget 
about it until you reach it. You will be surprised how 
easy it is to walk over your bridge. Suppose there is 
a debt bridge, a misunderstanding bridge, a disappoint¬ 
ment bridge—they were made to be crossed, and you can 
cross them, if you will but give your attention now to 
your journey to them. After you get on the other side 
of each you will wonder why it was you worried a second 
about the task of crossing them. 

After all, the bridge is but an incident in the complete 
journey. In fact, you might just as well burn your 
bridges as soon as you have crossed them, for you will 
never need to cross the same one twice. 

Talk it Over 

W HEN doctors disagree, they talk it over. The 
more closely civilization gets to a body of peo¬ 
ple, the more they become enthusiasts over co¬ 
operation—or, they start talking it over. 

[ 42 ] 





Take It 


If things get to “running off the track” with you, get all 
the disturbing elements together. Then talk it over. 

To first talk it over is like “counting ten” before get- 
ing mad. Meditation kills anger—cools passion. It’s a 
pretty good plan to remember to talk it over, before grab¬ 
bing things by the nape of the neck, and disturbing 
everything in general and oneself in particular. 

Inasmuch as there is quite a considerable of every 
one in each of us, the best person on earth to talk it over 
with should be your own self. 

New viewpoints come about through contact with 
other viewpoints. And when you realize how important 
your viewpoint is, you will understand, in turn, what a 
bearing upon big results, the simple method of talking 
it over has. 

Talk it over. Every time you fail to do so, you add 
weight to that which you must carry. And in this con¬ 
nection, remember that he who carries the lightest equip¬ 
ment travels farthest. 

Meddlers 

A BIG percentage of the world’s efficiency is singed 
and see-sawed through the ruffianism of purpose¬ 
less meddlers. Such meddlers are always pests. 
Their idea, in the first place, is merely to secure a certain 
sort of sensation or notoriety through seeking to turn 
good people or enterprises upside down or inside out. 
They are the fellows who rock the boat. 

There is only one kind of meddling that is laudable. 
That is where the meddling is done in order to throw 
out the bad and replace it with the good. 

When you meddle with affairs that are no concern of 
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Take It 


yours, that sort of meddling ruffles you all up and also 
the one into whose business you meddle. 

When you meddle, meddle constructively. 

Wherever there is wrong to right, you should meddle, 
and wherever conditions may be improved, you should 
meddle. 

Old John Brown and Garrison and Phillips were rabid 
meddlers, but they meddled until they had a whole na¬ 
tion for an audience, whose conscience became so 
aroused that human slavery had to go, even though it 
took a cruel war to do it. 


Fiddling 

F IDDLING is good for the soul—sometimes. If 
you fiddle away when there is important work to 
be done or while some one else is doing what you 
should do, that is not the time to fiddle. But if you have 
done the best you know how, and yet everybody seems 
to find fault with you, get your fiddle and fiddle away. 
It will cheer your heart, stimulate your brain and rest 
your body. 

But when at work, forget fiddling. Always leave the 
fiddle at home. In imagination, even, let not your mind 
go back to its fiddle. 

What kind of a fiddle? There are many kinds. Not 
literally the one with strings. Maybe a good book, or an 
hour or so at a wholesome sport, or a journey among the 
trees and flowers and birds in the country. Best of all—a 
good “hobby.” It’s the spirit of fiddling at the right 
time. Old Nero fiddled away as his Rome burned. But 
at that, he was fairly level-headed. For could he have 
[ 44 ] 





Take It 


done anything else as effective as fiddling away at his 
fiddle? He wasn’t the Fire and Hose Company. 

Own a fiddle of some sort. And learn to fiddle. Your 
nerves will thank you and your friends will thank you. 
But fiddle in fiddling hours. 

Early Birds 

T OO much emphasis is placed upon the importance 
of the early bird and not enough upon the open 
eyes—the initiative—of the early bird. Of what 
value is the early bird, if when he arrives, he can’t see 
the worm? 

Energy is high in value, but back of all energy must 
come common sense and the initiative to act. Napoleon 
was the terror that he was to all the nations of Europe 
for a decade, not alone because he was usually the early 
bird to an engagement, but because he no sooner ar¬ 
rived at a point than he began battle. 

In every walk of life, there are early birds—but they 
don’t all see the worm. It’s the early bird—AND the 
active bird that picks up the rewards. 

Man, woman—take home and to heart the old and new 
lesson of the early bird—but go farther and add to the 
early arrival at the centre of work and service, the 
best that is in you of alertness, courage and grit. 


[ 45 ] 





Take It 


Cut Grass 

W HAT odds though the rain is falling and the 
day is all misted up— 

Cut grass! 

Suppose you do have troubles, and everything, mir¬ 
rored from your mind, looks pale and lifeless— 

Cut grass! 

The rain to-day puts smiles and fragrance to the flow¬ 
ers to-morrow— 

Cut grass! 

Life’s busy little play is brief yet definite—and every 
man must act or get off the stage, so— 

Cut grass! 

Never mind how the other fellow works or what his 
ideas or plans or duties are, you — 

Cut grass! 

Throughout each minute, hour and day—cut grass. 
And don’t spend too much time fixing the grass cutting 
machine. Oil it up, keep the knives sharp, then get back 
of it and PUSH. That’s success. 

Cut grass! 

Meditate 

T HE time and place to meditate is at any time and in 
any place. Meditation is an attribute of strength 
and greatness. To him who knows how to medi¬ 
tate there is constantly being stored in his mind a fine 
wealth of power. 

Improve through meditation. 

Meditation develops the great faculties of the mind— 
stimulates and arouses the imagination. Meditation 
[ 46 ] 





Take It 


places in clear view before your eyes the best that is in 
you so that you may easily study out and evolve im¬ 
provement. A noted painter, on being reprimanded for 
his careless habits in not completing a great picture for 
which he had a contract, replied: “I am continually 
painting it within myself.” 

Improve through meditation. 

You grow from within—out. And as you meditate, 
your ideas multiply, your fallacies creep away, and the 
best of your thoughts are moulded into sound judgment 
and strong opinion. Most of the notable achievements 
in history started in quiet meditation at the close of a 
day, after some disappointment, or during the odd mo¬ 
ments of busy tasks. 

Improve through meditation. 

Take advantage of the daily chances for meditation. 
They may prove to be the vital and supreme moments 
of your life as they have many times proved for many a 
notable career. But meditate not on useless thoughts 
and trifles. Put your life plans frequently before your¬ 
self. Meditate upon them. Study their defects. Medi¬ 
tate upon how to correct them. Search for ideas. Medi¬ 
tate before deciding. Meditate to grow. 

Settle It 

D EAL in definites. Know the time and place of 
things. And build upon them. Do not allow 
indefinites and misunderstandings and mis judg¬ 
ments to crumble away your efficiency, put streaks of 
darkness into your happiness and stick crutches under¬ 
neath your arms. Deal in definites. 

Settle it. 

[ 47 ] 






Take It 


How many of us remember the story in one of our 
first school readers of the Old Gray Rat whose deci¬ 
sion could not be brought into play as he meditated all 
alone in that old tumble down barn, not knowing whether 
he ought to leave or stay. Every other rat had left, fear¬ 
ing calamity, but this Old Gray Rat stayed and stayed 
until finally the building collapsed, crushing and burying 
him in its ruins. 

Settle it. 

If your mind is unsettled, if your positives and nega¬ 
tives are brought together in deteriorating conflict, there 
is nothing under the sun that can make you valuable to 
yourself and to other people, excepting to settle, once for 
all, in one way or other, the trouble that causes the fric¬ 
tion. You can’t work positively when something nega¬ 
tive is gnawing at your vitals. Resolve to— 

Settle it. 

The Many 

I F we could but always think and act in terms of the 
Many. For is not every individual a unit of the 
whole in existence? Can you do even the minutest 
thing without its coming back at some time or other to 
the great thought of existence of the whole? 

Not only does a man not live to himself alone—but 
no man can live to himself alone. 

All you have to do is to stop and think for a moment 
to realize that there is nothing of what you think or of 
what you are that the Many do not come into to share. 
So it is personal responsibility that follows us and which 
we should walk arm in arm with at all times. 

But you say that the Many doesn’t “care for you ?” It 
[ 48 ] 





Take It 


can’t help it—for you are one of the Many. And the 
Many look to you quite as much as you look to the 
Many. 

O, multitude—the Many; O, individual—the One! 
You are of the make-up of this world as of the air you 
breathe. 

Loneliness cannot come if you live the normal, natural 
life. Unhappiness will stay afar off if you will but 
remember that you and the Many are One. 

It Might Be Better 

W ITH all the optimism that is spread over and into 
the very life of this world, there seems to be a 
considerable amount of pessimism that people 
like to dip into and make use of. 

We say : “Oh, well, it might be worse!” But optimism 
and sound sense say: “Yes, but it might be better!” 

Instead of starting to build from the rear end of 
things, why not try to begin at the head of things ? Why 
not always believe that you might have done your work 
better than you did do it? Can’t you see growth in 
this plan? 

The rocks in your way will look like boulders just so 
long as you imagine that they are boulders. 

Physiologists know the value of high thinking in its 
effect upon the great nervous system and all that goes 
with its intricate connections. “As a man thinketh, so 
is he,” is literally true. Every time you build in your own 
consciousness increased confidence, you realize in all 
outward circumstance increased power that belongs in 
full to you. 

[ 49 ] 






Take It 


Whatever you do—at its close—convince yourself that 
it might be better. 


Some Don’ts 

~W~^\ON'T be afraid of yourself, for if you are, every- 
! i body else will be afraid of you. Grant’s soldiers 
loyally followed him because he wasn’t afraid of 
his own leadership. 

Trust yourself. 

Don't think that because everybody else has failed in 
a project, that you will. The late George Westinghouse 
was called a fool by Commodore Vanderbilt. But his 
air-brake won and he died one of the wonderful men of 
his time. 

Kick out discouragement. 

Don't allow friends or influence or circumstances to 
color your courage and your aims. Walk right out of 
ease and away from the applause of the crowd, if neces¬ 
sary. Be firmly independent. 

Stand alone! 

Don't let yesterday’s blunders or failures darken to¬ 
day’s sunlit opportunities. Start your life anew with 
the starting of every hour. 

Be an initiator. 


Credit 

O NE of the big reasons for happiness on this earth 
is that every good and wonderful thing is ex¬ 
tended to us freely—on credit. The truly great 
trust posterity. We all feed upon the pain, privation and 
success of the world. 

[ 50 ] 






Take It 


We can never hope to repay to the sources of supply, 
our gifts of joy. 

We have what we have—through noble credit. So 
that credit has made debtors out of us all. Credit is 
trust, confidence—love, unalloyed. We are not expected 
to pay in full for what was in the first place freely and 
gladly given to us. But we must pay—in part. 

Your share—to pay—is in proportion to the credit that 
you take. 

Your turn to serve is always—at every present mo¬ 
ment. So that your satisfaction may ever be coming 
toward you instead of running fast from you. The mer¬ 
chant bothers not, with worry and lawyers, the man 
whose debt he holds, so long as that man willingly 
works to pay. 

In like manner will the Merchant of All Time trust 
and continue credit to you who earnestly seek to pay as 
you can. 

The Brothers of the Smile 

Y OU who smile are worth more than all the doctors, 
and pills and concoctions ever invented for the ills 
of mankind. 

You who smile hold within your hand the solution of 
the greatest problems of the universe. 

You who smile are sure to catch the light and inter¬ 
mingle with the rays of the very Sun itself as though 
you were but a continuation of the joy and glory that it 
radiates throughout the earth. 

You who smile make up success, for sucess is cheer¬ 
fulness put to good account. For you to smile is to for¬ 
get your own troubles and misfortunes and to immedi- 
[ 51 ] 





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ately compel everybody to adopt your cheerfulness and 
contentment. 

For you to smile is to so mix the elements that form 
your make-up as to place yourself before people as a 
living example of peace and power. 

For you to smile is for you to live and become a 
permanent member of the grandest society ever formed 
—The Brothers of the Smile. 


Scars 


HERE is one thing certain about the man who has 



scars, and that is that he has gone through some 


sort of a conflict. He was doing something. Scars 
never come to people who sit still. Most scars result from 
effort. Scars cost! Their price is paid in courage, sacri¬ 
fice, unselfishness, suffering. 

But scars silently testify to the value of character as 
no number of material medals or written words possibly 
could. 

Some bear scars that no human being can see. Some 
carry around scars that any one could discern if they 
would. Who is it that can see the scar left inside one’s 
very soul after a winning fight against some devastating 
habit? Who is it that can measure the depth of the scars 
interwoven about the lines and planes of a man’s face? 

Boast not at all, but take pride in every honorable 
scar that your body and character carry. 

A great lawyer, whose name is known by the masses 
of America, went to a photographer for some pictures. 
He sat in his office with a friend as the finished pictures 
were delivered to him. “Oh,” he remarked on glancing 


[ 52 ] 





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at them, “see what they have done. They have taken all 
the lines and scars from my face that it has taken me 
thirty years to put there!” 

Face the fight to-day. Scars may come before the 
nightfall, but each will mark a milestone in your career 
of worth. 


Holy Hysterics 


HERE are a great many things that you can do 



that will make the crowd smile, and that are out 


of the ordinary, yet which are the finest things 
that a human being can do. 

For instance, the man who can “lose himself” at a 
good, clean sport like a base ball game and who can 
throw his hat in the air and wave his arms and use his 
vocal cords to good advantage—such a man is a real 
man who is not afraid to show it. 

The man who gets too old to be enthusiastic has al¬ 
ready arrived at the age where he is useless. William 
E. Gladstone, chopping down trees at eighty years of 
age, was a wonderful spectacle—a fine picture of true 
greatness at play. 

Never be ashamed to show what you feel and to act 
out the things that come to the surface and which call 
for expression. Suppose people do call you hysterical 
and crazy. It is better to be hysterical and crazy in 
the sense of truly letting out harmless feelings and en¬ 
thusiasm than it is to be inhuman. 


[ 53 ] 





Take It 


Idea Ownership 

I DEAS are for the strong. There is no such thing 
as true plagiarism. There is not an idea expressed 
that has not already been expressed somewhere by 
some one at some time. So that no one is sole owner of 
an idea or a thought. 

The thoughts and ideas that you create out of your 
own personality belong to you only so long as you ex¬ 
press and work them out with greater realism than any 
one else. 

The thought of the world will never go into bank¬ 
ruptcy, nor will any receivership ever sit at its council 
table. In your strong and definite organism live the ele¬ 
ments that are able to create virile thought and expres¬ 
sion of endless benefit to humanity. And at the time 
you feel that you have given out most from your thought 
toil, at that moment you will be most enriched. 

Limit your thinking to a definite end. 

Off Parade 

S OME one has said that “no man is a hypocrite at his 
play.” What a shame that the world doesn’t play 
at least half of its time! 

Off parade the great man finds himself and he dis¬ 
covers to what proportion he is given over to greatness 
and to the expression of his personality. 

Play brings out character. A great newspaper man 
once told the writer that if he wanted to learn the real 
character of a man he would take him out for a week of 
trout fishing. It is at play—a long way off from the 
[ 54 ] 




Take It 


crowd—that a man unfolds himself and lays himself out 
for exhibition. And it is then that he is as he is, both 
good and bad. 

So that if you want to improve the opinion you would 
like people to have of you, get off parade—and play. 
But play alone occasionally so that even you may see 
the colorings of your character and in frank solitude 
see your own faults and shortcomings. 


Honesty is Intelligence 



HERE is a saying that ‘‘it takes a smart man to be 


a crook.” But it takes a smarter man to be hon- 


est, for honesty in its last analysis, is nothing but 
intelligence. The man who has brains sufficient to realize 
that honesty at all times is the best policy is the man who 
is the most intelligent. 

To be fair with yourself, is to be honest with your¬ 
self, and to be honest with yourself is to show to the 
world that you are very intelligent. 

Dishonesty always robs a man of his honor, always 
kills the natural workings of his brain and blasts at the 
vitals of his heart feeling. So that dishonesty of what¬ 
ever nature is always ignorance. 

Brains used for dishonest purposes require just as 
much time and effort as though directed along high and 
noble channels. And yet the returns are always lower, 
for the man who is forced to despise himself and to turn 
traitor to the best feelings and sentiments that he has, 
makes himself an outlaw before all the world. 

Honesty is always intelligence. If you doubt it in the 
least manner, put it to the test, and you will find that 
nothing is truer than this statement. 


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The Educated Heart 

I GNORANCE is not confined to the brain. There are 
people who have ignorant hearts—people who con¬ 
stantly profess a desire to do good deeds, but never 
put them into action, thus keeping their hearts and finer 
sentiments bare and uneducated. 

The old saying is that “hell is paved with good inten- 
tions.” It probably is if there is a hell. Quite as likely 
are the walls of people’s hearts lined with cold, quiet 
marble, whose good intentions never get outside. 

Instead of saying to your friend, “If there is anything 
I can do for you let me know,” get busy and do some¬ 
thing, and then your friend will let you know afterwards 
how much he appreciates your thoughtfulness. Do— 
and leave the intending business to somebody else. 

There is hardly an hour of any day that the oppor¬ 
tunity doesn’t crop out from some unknown source for 
a man or woman to render distinct and definite service 
—a chance to add culture and refinement, as well as 
power, bigness and broadness to their heart education. 

Watch for these chances. Grasp them the minute you 
see them and work them out. Not every one, perhaps, 
may become the “highly educated” man or woman, from 
a brain standpoint, but none is so poor or so isolated that 
it is impossible for him or her to become the finest edu¬ 
cated—in heart. 


[ 56 ] 





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What You Can 

O LD Themistocles was a very wise old fellow. Lis¬ 
ten to what he once said: “I cannot fiddle, but I 
can make a little village a great city!” 

Every man is expected by Almighty God, by society, 
and by himself to do something that shall count. But 
he is never expected to do anything that he cannot or 
that he is by make-up unfitted to do. The failures of 
this world are made up, largely, from the ranks of those 
who tried to do what they never could do in a thousand 
years. 

Suppose you can’t sing, or eloquently speak, or in¬ 
vent, or rule. You can saw wood. Most everybody can 
do that. Wood must be sawed and there must be those 
who will step up and face the woodpile. 

So, if you can’t do what you would LIKE to do, why 
not do what you can do? 

Credit always migrates to where credit is due. Your 
energies may be horribly discounted at some jobs, where 
at others they might draw all men your way. The peo¬ 
ple who “find their place ’ 7 are the people who FIT their 
place. 

Most certainly you have a chance to do what you can 
—if you WILL. 

Everybody is a miserable failure at something—or 
would be. The happy man is he who is a success at 
something that he can do well. You can smile, any¬ 
way. And if there is one thing that this old world needs, 
it is a great Army and Navy of smilers. 


[ 57 ] 





Take It 


This Artificial World 


HIS is a mighty artificial world—and every mov¬ 



ing, breathing person knows it. You know, and I 


know, that we must make dunces of ourselves a 
good deal of the time in order not to appear queer and 
unorthodox—whatever that is. 

If the storekeeper says that buttons on our shoes are 
the thing, buttons we insist on having. But if he tells 
us that buttons are no longer considered the thing, then 
we must agree with him that strings are the real thing 
with which to tie our shoes. And so on, and on, through 
a million like foolishnesses. 

We must be “in style” and we must keep up with the 
other fellow at all costs, or else we actually are “out 
of date.” But how much of history is wasted on what 
a man wore or ate or where he slept? 

Women kiss and men shake hands, and the little tots 
don’t do any of these things. They do just as they feel 
and are. Their toes rebel at the artificial squeezes. 
Their little heads disapprove of the “higher laws” of 
“the higher circle,” for they don’t understand and they 
don’t want to understand. They are little democrats, 
free and easy, natural and glad and good. 

But always the man—when in wonderful solitude— 
pulls off his coat, kicks off his shoes, rids himself of his 
neck slavery and turns off the stage lights. He forgets 
about his transient feelings—naturally. Because he is 
as much a product of the Divine mind as the birds that 
sing at his door in the morning. 

This artificial world! Would that we all might—once 
at least—give it an awful wallop. 


[ 58 ] 




Take It 


Your Neighbor 

W E are all our brother’s keeper, and we are all 
neighbors. But we are everlastingly forgetting 
about these truths. 

A .Scotchman, to whom the name of a Dr. Robertson 
had traveled down, was curious to know who he really 
was. To which inquiry, his genial neighbor modestly, 
with a smile, responded: “YOUR NEIGHBOR!” But 
the Scotchman could not persuade himself that the man 
with whom he conversed daily was the man who wrote 
the history of his country. 

The great look mighty human and commonplace close 
by. But that is one of the surest evidences of their 
greatness. 

Whoever smiles at you a smile of comfort and en¬ 
couragement is your neighbor, whether he lives over 
the fence or over the miles. At times even a world looks 
insignificant. And at other times the few steps between 
yourself and the fellow next door may be a false thou¬ 
sand miles. 

IBs too bad that “introductions” are expected. You 
can’t order your friend or neighbor as you do your coat. 
On the other hand, what delights of human companion¬ 
ship are left to perish as do the lilies of the forest, be¬ 
cause of a lot of man-made nonsense of formality. 

A man passes for what he is, sooner or later. And 
the. chances are that you will like your neighbor quite 
as well as you make yourself likable to him. I don’t 
know who you are—but you are my neighbor. 


[ 59 ] 





Take It 


Titles 

H OW many people put their fine faith into titles. 
As though a Dr., or Prof., or Ph.D., or an X. 
Y. Z. were sufficient pavement over which a 
MAN should walk! 

George Washington, Ph.D.; Abraham Lincoln, A. M.; 
James Whitcomb Riley, Lit. D.; Theodore Roosevelt, 
L. H. D., M. S., D. D., O. D., E. D.—And-So-On. 
Funny stuff, isn’t it? 

Little folks work their fool heads off for titles and 
then live off them or rather try to. Big men despise 
titles because they would keep stumbling over them. 

But some titles DO count For instance: Bill Jones, 
MAN; Jake Riis, CITIZEN; Sam Smith, FATHER; 
Charlie Force, DOER! No red tape and false exertion 
ever invented or bestowed such titles. But God Almighty 
has millions of like sort to unfussedly tie inseparately 
to every worthy name—and without any advance asking 
for them. 

Real people create their own titles. 

Genuineness is not for sale or hire in the market¬ 
place. What you ARE is infinitely finer and more dis¬ 
tinguished than anything somebody else is able to hand 
you. Honor is something that grows up from some¬ 
where deep inside of you. That which you outwardly 
inherit or acquire can amount to nothing excepting as it 
makes you more human and understandable and help¬ 
ful to other people. 

Have your titles if you will, but make them YOUR¬ 
SELF. 


[ 60 ] 








Take It 


The Hand Clappers 

O F all the nonsense performers, the professional 
hand clapper is about the cheapest. He is an 
automatic mechanism set to an outburst of noise. 
He isn’t sincere and he knows it. He claps because he 
thinks he is expected to clap. 

If some one could get you in a corner, alone, and 
ask you what your soul craved for, most all the time, 
you would probably say—encouragement and just ap¬ 
proval. The crazy hand clappers wouldn’t enter your 
mind. 

Always the first man to desert you is the made-to- 
order hand clapper. 

Sometimes the dainty hands do the service, sometimes 
the big, coarse hand. But it is always done according 
to “form” and system. You may tickle the crowd’s ears 
and delight their eyes, but unless you get into the inner 
heart of real people, what you do might as well be done 
out in the woods among the silent trees, where the birds 
flit and the animals jump. 

So, don’t build upon applause and the volume of hand 
clapping. 

The Greatest Habit 

A LL habits revolve about one great central habit of 
yours—the habit to accurately, logically, clearly, 
and quickly, when occasion demands it—THINK. 
That comparatively small area back of your eyes where 
all the intricate faculties—the most marvelous space of 
wealth ever created—live, move and direct, is the real 
place where your happiness is controlled. 

[ 61 ] 





Take It 


Just the minute you stop thinking you become a 
wanderer and a derelict. 

If nobody is at home upstairs, what are you going to 
do when some stranger knocks? The brain is a thing 
that must be constantly fed during every waking hour, 
but the brain acts and reacts as does the stomach, ac¬ 
cording to the food that is given it. Feed the brain 
with dissolute pictures and worthless ideas and you will 
be a dissolute and worthless man, just as your body 
would be a weak and- wobbling affair should you feed 
it unsanitary and unwholesome food. But both thrive 
and glow when given what they naturally demand. 

The brain naturally demands and naturally responds 
to every process of high and noble thinking. 

No matter where you are or what you do, think. 
Under every condition, as your first armament, think. 
There is a solution for every problem, and it is to— 
think. The man that uses his head properly is always 
a power and the man that doesn’t use his head properly 
is always a menace. 

Your whole human organism is but a bundle of habits, 
but the greatest of all is to think—accurately, logically, 
clearly—and quickly. 

Condition 

T HE lamest excuse in all the world to fall back upon 
is the lack of condition. Why—condition! It’s 
the sole secret of success. Go to your task or 
emergency in the full “pink of condition” and the result, 
whether successful or unsuccessful, is sure to be fully 
honorable. 

[ 62 ] 





Take It 


The perfectly conditioned man is the ever ready man. 
He’s the Master when the game begins. 

It is said of Meissonier, the great painter, that he 
nightly anointed his hands with oil, so that his were the 
most beautiful hands in all his country. But the real rea¬ 
son for this great care of his hands was that they might 
at all times be in perfect condition to move about his 
canvases and paint the thoughts of their Master un¬ 
erringly. 

Preparation and condition are quite synonomous. 
They are the real reasons for strength and power at 
every cross-roads station of every day plodding. They 
are the watchwords that pour out the measure of suc¬ 
cess that is possible to you, as you will and work. 

To be ready is to be first prepared. 

Heed condition. It’s the balancing meed that puts 
you fit for fighting and fulfilling. 

The Punch 

I T’S the man with the “punch” that climbs and 
achieves. So many stop just short of winning. They 
lack the punch—that sort of inborn ability—to put 
things through. 

It is possible for you to have great abilities and for 
your brain to add numerous letters, in varied degrees, 
behind your name, but if you have not the punch to back 
up what your brain has gone out to conquer, you, as 
a personage of influence and power, are quite tame and 
commonplace. 

Better be known for getting things done—quietly and 
effectively, accompanied by that mystery-moving, master- 
[ 63 ] 





Take It 


making, quality, punch—than own the pure intellect of 
a giant. For it’s the punch that wins. 

No one cares for the namby-pamby. Red blood and 
vigor ever and always are tied to the punch. 

Commerce and success are not found upon the street 
comers and along the road edges, warming their faces 
in the sun and resting their toes upon the pavement. 
Commerce and success are inside, moving here and there, 
buying, selling—delivering the goods—living and doing 
as the parents of the punch. 


You 


ET the immensity of your chance to live, more and 



more, quicken you. Have you ever paused long 


enough to consider seriously that each breath that 
you breathe, pacing out its measure, whispers an urgent 
message to you in that Time is adding up its strokes? 

As though minutes could be whistled back like a petted 
dog! 

It is for all of us—to think. For, as we think, we 
link our thoughts into the endless chain of Eternity. 
Minutes, hours, days—what priceless affairs! What a 
job to so handle them that at the close of each, they have 
so lifted us that we are able to see the whole of Eternity 
busy at the penciling of its story, through the intricate 
meanings that each one of our thoughts and acts have, 
with sureness, indelibly traced. 

For, if everything that we think and do is a part of 
the wonder of Eternity—so also are we. 

Be happy that you live. 

The air that you breathe—let it taste delicious to you. 


[ 64 ] 





Take It 


And whatever you see with your eyes, see the marvelous 
in it. Thus, exulting, search for the common cord of 
human feeling, that you may be able to play a tune to 
the whole world, revealing through the music of work, 
that you are a human among other humans, playing your 
part as one of the important players on the shifting stage 
of history’s everyday. 

Whether there be applause or not—mind not. If there 
be but smiles, you shall know that service has been per¬ 
formed—which is the zenith of joy and the whole pur¬ 
pose of life—for YOU and everybody. 


How To Find Yourself 



LONELY woman once wrote to the writer of 


these brief little talks saying that she felt “lost” 


and that she sincerely wanted to “find” herself 
and wanted to know how. 

There is only one way to find yourself and that is to 
hunt out some one else. 

Our own little troubles, aches, worries, disappoint¬ 
ments all melt noiselessly and almost unnoticeably away 
the moment we seek to eliminate these things from the 
life of somebody else. No matter how unfortunate or 
unhappy you are, there is some one, somewhere, who is 
worse off. Remember this. Then try to find that per¬ 
son. When you have found such a one and sought to put 
some sunshine into his clouds, you’ll find sunshine 
creeping in to your life from everywhere. 

Think of the happiness and usefulness beyond—that 
which arrives at the house of somebody else the minute 
you take it there. 


[ 65 ] 





Take It 


Immortal beings should trot around. There is noth¬ 
ing but rust and decay in standing still and wondering 
why somebody doesn't come along and give you a lift. 
The lift will come but it is necessary for you to go out 
and motion for it. It is inevitable if you but keep the 
habit of individual lifting alive within your soul. 

Go! Hunt, move—busy yourself in service and you 
can’t help but find yourself. And when you have found 
yourself, you will be happy. 



I SN’T it strange that in this strange world the stranger 
is the strangest of all strange things? Half an hour 
beiore, the man or woman that you passed by, was a 
stranger—but now through mutuality of some one else 
you are made akin. 

Why is it that any one of us should be strange to 
somebody else? Our feet all pat the same ground and 
the air we breathe all comes from the Eternal Provider 
at whose board we are after all but a little company in 
comparison with the bigness of the universe. 

How fine it would be if every one of us instinctively 
knew each other and felt drawn freely and without re¬ 
straint to each other. Must cold and meaningless for¬ 
mality slice away half the hope of happiness in the 
world? 

You who have missed the contagious whole-hearted¬ 
ness and splendid man-for-what-he-is spirit of the frag¬ 
rant West-America, contrasted with the formality and 
stage rules of the East, if you knew, might almost long 
that the East and West might change clothes for a while 


[ 66 ] 




Take It 


—just to get acquainted and to realize that the strangers 
are too many—in the East. 

The sooner you realize that everybody is a friend, pro¬ 
vided you carry around with you the friend fragrance, 
the sooner will you wake up to the true family feeling of 
the world and the sooner will dissensions and class divi¬ 
sions disappear and all be as one working toward a single 
end. 


Horse Play 


O many, life and its responsibilities come only as 



so much horse play. To such, days come merely 


as consecutive pieces of events—all happenings— 
heavy laden, ’tis true, with their burden of opportunity 
and sunshine and happy forebodings, but as heralds of 
importance they hold no sway. 

Are you in any part or parcel a mover in this daily 
farce of horse play—an actor in antics unavailing? 

Most of us are guilty—in some measure or to some 
extent—of horse play—tiddle-de-winking with time and 
hope. So that to all of us comes the call to attention and 
aptitude to work and duty. 

Is your work, no matter how important or humble, the 
most serious thing at your hand? Or, are you inter¬ 
mixing it with nonsense and horse play? These are in¬ 
dividual questionings. And they must be conferenced 
out alone, each man unto himself. 

'Whatever you do, do something upon which you can 
build. Eliminate all horse play. 


[ 67 ] 





Take It 


That Which Comes 

W E are apt to value most those things which come 
to us because we go after them. And those 
who have not the energy and force and fight 
to go after things, work overtime trying to convince the 
rest of the world that they have ben cruelly left on the 
back door step. 

But, as a matter of truth, have you ever stopped to 
consider that some of the best things in this world actu¬ 
ally come to you ? 

The air you breathe, nature with all her wonderful 
works, friends, love, and golden opportunities by the 
score—these things come to you without cost and mostly 
unasked. Your character and happiness and success de¬ 
pend upon how you take them all and how you use what 
they offer. 

Smiles are not bought for a price. Courage has no 
paid salesmen. Initiative isn’t a beggar. You win with 
what you take and use—from the endless selections that 
each day offers. 

You bring nothing with you into this world that you 
can take out of it at the close of your days—excepting 
what you become from the things that travel your way. 
And you grow big or shrink from the attitude you take 
toward that which comes. 

Certainly you can have success. It’s in the air, it’s 
everywhere. It’s always after you from some quarter or 
other. Take it. 


[ 68 ] 





Take It 


The Sun 

I T’S no wonder that there are in the world those who 
are termed Sun worshippers. It is too bad that the 
world is not full of people who are Sun worshippers 
and Sun lovers. 

Probably the Sun has a greater influence on our lives 
than any other physical force. When the Sun shines, 
usually our spirits within shine and—we shine. 

But when the Sun goes under a cloud and the day all 
darkens up, then we forget that there ever was a Sun. 
Even the grass and flowers grow sad as soon as the Sun 
creeps away. Just as soon as it shows its face every¬ 
thing begins to brighten up and there are smiles every¬ 
where. Even the birds then sing their sweetest songs. 

If the Sun came but a half dozen times a year, the 
whole world would rise to honor it and celebrate over its 
coming, but because it is with us so much we forget all 
that it is to us. We forget that, as a matter of fact, it 
is rare that we don’t have it, but on those rare occasions 
we grow complaining and discontented. 

But in remembering and enjoying and loving the Sun, 
do not forget that marvelous as the Sun is, somebody in¬ 
finitely more Marvelous made the Sun. 


Awe 


T HE awe of things raises the hair of many of us 
and starts our hearts to tapping faster. But 
why ? There is no why. 

Many a man has enveloped himself with a certain kind 
of awe and climbed over it to success. The world ad- 
[69 ] 





Take It 


mires nerve and courage—even a kind of bluff—else they 
wouldn’t take it into their keeping so much. 

What is awe? It’s an attitude. If the attitude makes 
good on its face value, you win. 

Are you afraid to go ahead because you are awed away 
from your ideals and convictions? The trouble with 
you, maybe, is that you need to awe yourself. For no one 
is going to be awed by your attitude unless you hold 
securely within your own soul the essence of power that 
gives to the strong man his awe. 

The best and most comfortable place in this world to 
stand—where you can think and fight and work—is out 
in front. If you are awed at all, you are awed by the 
fellow who leads. 

Why not do a little leading yourself? Why not step 
out from the crowd? Why not make of your character 
and influence something that will awe and inspire. 

YOU CAN—if you will. 


On Forgiving Yourself 

Y OU are closer to yourself than is any other person. 
Wrapped within you, and inner sealed, are the 
precious forces that explain to you what sort of a 
person you are. You are yourself because you are your¬ 
self. You can never be anybody else—notwithstanding 
the fact that there is within you a little bit of each and 
every one who has lived before you, and now lives. 

When you do wrong, you hurt yourself—you are the 
greatest sufferer. No one can possibly realize the pain 
or remorse that your locked heart feels. It’s all there, 
shut, silent and vault like—eyes and alien feelings cannot 
[ 70 ] 





Take It 


wedge in there. The outside world may criticise and 
sneer and cynically smile—but it cannot forgive you. Ex¬ 
cept formally. Forgiveness must come out of yourself 
and then go back from whence it came. For you are 
the one most wronged by yourself. Therefore forgive 
yourself. 

But forgive yourself openly and freely—making no 
exceptions. 

And after you have forgiven yourself, away with all 
sentimental bosh and blubber. You are then a new being. 
You are the same as though you were about to start new. 
Start then. And get happy over the matchless power that 
you have in forgiving yourself. 


Clock Watchers 

F OR you to be a clock watcher is not a bad idea— 
provided you watch the clock right—to see just 
how MUCH you can do that is worth while inside 
each hour. For then, to you each click will emphasize re¬ 
sponsibility and an urgency for action. For you will fully 
realize that— 

Each clock-click means Time—GONE. 

As soon as you form the habit of measuring your day 
in clock-clicks and as you do it, stake off deeds done, 
you come to honor Time and give to every duty and 
every piece of work—no matter how small—a dignity of 
standing that is sure to clothe you with a feeling of 
superbness. So, forget not that— 

Each clock-click meanes Time—GONE. 

One of the real inspiring pictures of this and coming 
generations is had in the picture of the silver haired 
[ 71 ] 






Take It 


Edison bending quietly over his tubes and wires and 
paraphernalia in his laboratory in Orange, New Jersey. 
Would that some painter might put it into some match¬ 
less canvas or that some marble wielder might get it into 
deathless stone! Here is the picture of a man—the most 
wonderful of his age—momentarily deploring that there 
are so many clock-clicks and that they rush by so quickly. 
Edison has always realized that— 

Each clock-click means Time—GONE. 

Watch the clock—or imagine it before you as you 
work. But only that you may not lose a single chance to 
Be and Do inside the minutes and hours that click, click, 
click—away. 


Spilled Milk 



OU who read this book and have stumbled into this 


little talk, here is a question: Do you believe in 


spilled milk? Spilled milk has come to mean ac¬ 
cidents that you couldn’t help. It is the unavoidable. 

Make your spilled milk a source of strength. 

For if it is spilled—it is spilled. That is the end of the 
milk. The next move is to hunt up some more milk. 
There is an unrealized amount of energy and usefulness 
wasted through spilled milk. There is always another 
cow somewhere. 

Make your spilled milk a source of strength. 

Instead of regret and sorrow and bemoaning over your 
mistakes and blunders and accidents, smile and turn on 
a supply of extra steam and begin to cash in on the hap¬ 
pening. Make each such case of spilled milk a test of 
the fine endurance that is within you. Find a new cow. 
Go after some more milk. 

Make your spilled milk a source of strength. 


[ 72 ] 







Take It 


Hats and Collars 

I SN’T it strange that the average man or woman cares 
more for what other people think of them than of 
what they think of themselves—so strangely have we 
become entrenched in false precedent and standards. 

Take hats and collars, for instance. 

Excepting in the case of rain and excessive heat, hats 
are positively harmful. The abolition of hats, except¬ 
ing for the purpose of protection, would prevent fully 
fifty per cent of the hair of the heads of the human race 
from leaving its natural place. 

There is nothing more healthful than to walk in the 
open air without a hat and allow the golden rays of the 
Sun to kiss your brain top and the gentle breezes to fan 
and cool it. Did you ever hear of a bald Indian? 

The same idea of slavery hovers about collars, high 
heels, crazy clothes and the like. For the sake of style 
and precedent and what other people will think and say 
we become slaves and bow to ideas long dead. 

If you want people to notice you and respect you, you 
can’t adopt a better plan than to do things differently, by 
doing what you think you ought to do—not what some¬ 
body else thinks you ought to do. 

Playing and Being 

N O one could sit long before the acting of the late 
Joseph Jefferson without being tremendously im¬ 
pressed with the fact that in front of him was a 
man not merely playing a part, but a man who WAS the 
part. For Jefferson to act was for him to BE the actual 
character. 

[ 73 ] 





Take It 


And yet, after all, perfect acting is but living the part. 

And to LIVE your part is to ACT—superbly. 

Sometimes it seems that the myriad affairs of life have 
become so inter-mixed and inter-massed that earnest¬ 
ness and individuality of excellence only come about 
here and there when a man or woman decides to BE 
instead of to play. 

The man who unconsciously grows is the man who 
is afraid to play while at his job. 

The imitators and tinkerers dot the world’s activities. 
Have you ever stopped to ask yourself whether or not 
you are one of the dots? Have you ever answered to 
yourself, truly and with conviction, that you are actually 
being the part in which you are engaged? 

The way to be an orator is to forget oratory. In like 
manner the way to be a great worker and doer is to 
forget that you are at work and that you are doing. 


Onslaughts 



HERE is a lesson for us all in the life of the wres¬ 


tler. His whole training centers around how to 


meet all sorts of onslaughts—and in it all, to— 
keep his feet. 

Keep your feet. 

Daily there are men and women toppling over and 
being tramped underneath the rushing feet of the crowd, 
simply because they never learned how to meet the on¬ 
slaughts and to ward them off. 

Keep your feet. 

The interesting and thrilling events of your life are 
the conflicts and battles you have fought. Many times 


[ 74 ] 





Take It 


the onslaughts come from within yourself. But if so, 
they are none the less bereft of glory, if you but— 
Keep your feet. 

To-day, stand steady. The hours many times fail to 
send on advance messengers. Onslaughts come mostly 
unannounced. The world is a wonderful world, and you 
are a wonderful man or woman, if you have learned how, 
under all conditions, to— 

Keep your feet. 


The True Host 



HERE are few pleasures that give more satisfac¬ 


tion than the pleasure of making somebody else 


happy while you take the center of the stage as 


host. 


The true host forgets that he is around and remembers 
only that his friend is there. 

You can never be a true host by bringing to your fire¬ 
side or to your estate or to your table human beings 
merely to shift the poisoned feelings and sensibilities of 
your own self to them. To make them happy all the 
happiness that is within you should enter them. 

Hospitality is something that is given away, not ex¬ 
changed, not loaned—not sold. 

As soon as your guest enters your heart and home, he 
should be made to feel that what is yours is his, that 
the very atmosphere, your accessories and all you have 
are his to enjoy as though they belonged to him. 

And don’t forget this—that whatever you have and 
whatever your guest has, are merely loaned to you both 
after all. 


[ 75 ] 





Take It 


A Five-Hour Day 


I T is a very wise saying, that it is not what a man 
earns, but what he SAVES that establishes that 
man’s wealth. So it is with effort. It is not what a 
man consumes in time that makes his abilities valuable, 
but it is what he concentrates into time—what he ac¬ 
complishes in the briefest time that goes to stamp that 
man as a do-er. 

The efficiency and advisability of an eight-hour law 
for workers has been proved over and over again as a 
wise move. For the fresher and healthier and happier a 
man or woman is the more useful they are and the 
better they do their work. 

A step farther, however, is necessary. The sooner men 
get big enough to seriously move for a five-hour work¬ 
ing day the sooner will the maximum efficiency of work¬ 
ers be proved. For, are not five hours in which a man 
concentrates everything that he has within him to the 
working out of his ideas, of vastly more benefit than 
eight hours of labor performed wherein his efforts reach 
but half their full power? 

What a world for human beings this will be when the 
flag is run up that means a five-hour day. 


Golf 


OLF is a character game. It is a health game. 
It is a joy game. It is a man game. 



There is not a town or city in any country that 
would not double its investment over and over again 
should it build, equip and care for its own municipal golf 


[ 76 ] 





Take It 


links and urge its youth to take fullest advantage of its 
benefits. 

For of all the games for the showing up of what a 
real man is, what he has and what he lacks, there is 
nothing the peer of golf. It is too bad that at the 
present time it is so much the game of the man of money 
and leisure. 

Golf trains and clears the mind, lightens the heart and 
strengthens the body. It slaps the face of worry, takes 
the wind out of the sails of gloom, teaches marvelous 
control and leads a man right into the innermost secrets 
of his own soul, where he can look them over, analyze 
them and work them to useful purpose. 

Also golf takes a man’s mind far from himself. 

No wonder the game has lasted as long as it has, no 
wonder it is growing every day in popularity, no wonder 
that once entered upon, it grips, fascinates and rivets the 
best that is within a man to its best mastery. 


Perspiration 



HERE is a great deal said about the “ordinary 


man.” Did you ever stop to think that there is 


only one thing that can make an “ordinary man” ? 
And that is for that man to do ordinary things in an 
ordinary way. 

The big, successful man—the driving, purposeful, ac¬ 
complishing man—he is the fellow who does things just 
a little extra-ordinary. He sweats. 

Perspiration is what keeps the whole world from be¬ 
coming commonplace. Just the minute the sweat begins 
to roll off a fellow’s forehead, that moment his heart 


[ 77 ] 






Take It 


comes to his task, his sensibilities grow keen and his 
soul bubbles with joy. 

If you are unhappy and if things are not just right, 
roll up your sleeves and get busy at some task that will 
start the water running off your brow. It will immedi¬ 
ately dry up those little globules that try to come out of 
your eyes, and bring you back to the point where you 
will realize that, after all, you are master of yourself. 

Perspire! And remember that it never hurt any man. 


Nit-Wits 



HE most highly organized piece of machinery in 


the world remains valueless unless its value is de- 


voted to the purpose for which it was built. It 
is the same with the human brain. Of all marvelous 
organizations ever conceived, the organization in the 
make-up of a Master Mind excels them all. 

There are few brains that are not wonderful in some 
way. 

Your brain, for instance, has possibilities that no other 
brain has ever had. But if these possibilities are merely 
shoved aside, made over into vacuum chasers and con¬ 
stantly thwarted, you who are guided by your brain, 
finally are resolved into just an ordinary “Nit-Wit,” a 
man with a potentially useful brain, but with “nobody 


home.” 


Every time you use your brain to a purpose, you create 
brand new uses for all its forces. And every time you 
allow yourself to become a mere “Nit-Wit” you make 
it that much easier for your brain to run wild—aimlessly 
treading its way. 


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Take It 


Brook Philosophy 


AN there be anything more delightfully fascinating 



than the busy, sparkling, moving little brook as 


it winds its way from the high places, around and 
about the rocks and ferns and trees and flowers and bird 


songs ? 


For the little brook keeps traveling—on and on, ex¬ 
pecting bigger things—and singing a trinkle song as it 
goes. 

And if you could follow, you would learn from the 
steady, patient little brook. For sometime or other, 
somewhere, the river or lake must appear. And the little 
brook’s ideal comes true. 

No brook, however, ever became anything by becoming 
stagnant. Its life must be one of motion and action— 
all the time going forward. 

The little brook doesn’t care how many miles it has 
to go before it becomes big. It has no mind for the 
stones and hills in its way. It just keeps going. And 
it’s glad to feed the fishes and water the birds and 
animals and people while it’s on its way. Without ask¬ 
ing favors it fully grants them to anything and any¬ 
body. 

Oh, you little brook! I can learn a lot from YOU. 


How 


H OW—to smile; how—to be serious; how—to be 
content and even-souled though having little; 
how—to be big and generous with an abundance : 
how—to face trial times with fortitude and calmness; 
how—to taste defeat; and how—to drink from the cup of 


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victory without singeing your fine spirit. Happiness and 
one of the greatest secret sources of character strength 
lie in your ability to interpret, to live, to understand—just 
how. 

If you do not know how, learn how. 

Back of much failure is the ignorance of how. There 
is a world of value in knowing how to convert set-backs 
and repeated failures into big successes later on. For 
there is a constantly increasing power back of it that is 
sure to be yours if.you start out by knowing how. You 
will then enter your work with daring and confidence, 
feeling full well that what comes is sure to be something 
worth while. 

If you don’t know how, learn how. 

How many a man on looking over a piece of work ex¬ 
plains that he doesn’t know how to go about it, and 
how to carry it through. But there is always some one 
somewhere who DOES know how. And to him who 
does know how and proves it, multitudes remain ever 
ready to cheer him on and up. 

If you do not know how, learn how. 


I Must 

T OO many of us live little negative lives, doing the 
things that merely “fall” to us or pass our way. 
We do too little reaching out and digging down. 
We think of “I Must,” for instance, as a positive that 
only heroes and gods ought to associate with. But— 
Unless your life is permeated by positives—by some 
personal responsibility of effort, your character, at the 
end, will stand weak indeed. 

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“I Must/’ said Lord Nelson, at Trafalgar; “I Must,” 
said Washington at Valley Forge; “I must,” said Lin¬ 
coln, at Gettysburg; “I Must,” said Mark Twain, with 
bankruptcy clutching at his heart; “I Must,” says every 
great man and woman, sensing duty, opportunity, crisis, 
and the larger success. 

“I Must,” is God’s vest pocket formula to you who 
breathe His free air, and work in His workshops. 

Daily every one of us faces tasks that we didn’t expect 
and that we would rather not do. It is the order of 
circumstance. But just the minute that “I Must” comes 
along, our program clears up and our work proceeds 
plainly and according to plan. That man is most satis¬ 
fied with life who is most satisfied with doing what he 
feels is his BEST. 

“I Must!” All right—proceed. 

Shaking Hands 

A MAN’S hand, a woman’s hand, a baby’s hand— 
hands—what a World these hands have helped to 
shape! 

So, is it any wonder that the adopted mode of greet¬ 
ing and good will should be by grasping and—shaking 
hands ? 

All I want to know about a human being is how he 
shakes hands, and you may take your fancy pedigree 
chart and hang it in the wood shed. 

I know that I can trust and love the full heart-warm 
hand shaker. I don’t care how rough or smooth the palm 
or fingers may be. I want to feel the heart jumping out 
there. I want to feel that that’s where character silently 
says its say. 

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Take It 


Oh, how bounden up in mere foolish forms we are. 
But shaking hands is none of them. 

This is a busy world and folks don’t all have time to 
ask of you from whence you came, or how long you 
expect to stay, or how much you claim to carry around 
in your brain box, but each and all do have time to talk 
of what you are in your hand shake. 

So, here’s a hand shake for you across the silent miles. 

Tears 

T EARS do much to keep the human soul from freez¬ 
ing up. Have you ever stopped to think of the 
kind of world this would be without tears? 

The tears of the babe, the tears of the mother, the 
tears of the strong man! As the dew on the clothes of 
the earth at morning time, so are tears, scattered among 
people, as change is wrought and events step ahead, the 
beautifiers of the world. 

No man or woman ever shed honest tears without see¬ 
ing better and clearer afterwards. 

Moments there be when the human heart becomes “too 
full for utterance.” And it is at such a time that tears 
must flow that vision may become newly adjusted. 

But woe be to him by whom unhappy tears must come 
—the tears of anger, of oppression, of poverty—of war. 

Tears of joy, tears of thankfulness, tears of love, 
tears of full expression. Well, these kind are worth 
while. 

So don’t be afraid or ashamed of them when they 
abruptly appear. 

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Take It 


Who Cares? 

W E are all creatures of moods. And so we all 
have moments when we feel as though we were 
of such small value that nobody cares who we 
are or what we do. But if ever a man is stranded upon 
the rocks, it is at such a time as this. 

Who cares ? Why! everybody cares. Don’t you think 
that they don’t. If they say they don’t, they don’t mean 
it. 

Your discouraged hour is the discouraged hour of 
many a one right now, somewhere. And if that one is 
believing that somebody, somewhere, really cares, you 
can believe as he believes. 

This is a caring old world—hard faced as it seems to 
look. It would have been put out of business long ago 
if it hadn’t cared. No matter what your lot, there is 
some one, somewhere, whose lot is harder, and the 
chances are that he is sticking it out like a good Indian, 
with patience and fortitude. 

Who cares? YOU care! 

For you are a human being. And is not a human being 
a million times greater than all the birds and animals 
and flowers and chunks of gold and all the rubies and 
diamonds that serve and beautify the place where human 
beings live and eat and walk around? 

Whether you care or not counts with you more than 
with anybody else, much as everybody else cares. Re¬ 
member that it does not rain ALL the time anywhere. 


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Take It 


Blue Devils 


D O you ever have the Blue Devils? If you never 
do, you are not human. Even as the temperature 
rises and falls, so do our moods and feelings come 
and go, tumble over each other, scatter, and then come 
together again. 

The most wonderful antidote for the Blue Devils— 
for of course you know what they are—is work. 

But you say: “That is what, has brought on the little 
Blue Devils. I have been working too hard.” No, you 
have been worrying too hard. Work harder. It may be, 
however, that you have been doing the wrong sort of 
work. Work till you find the RIGHT work. 

Red-blooded people have fewer Blue Devils than any 
one else. 

Fresh air, clean thoughts, sound sleep and plenty of 
it, and activity, redden the blood as nothing else can. 
Also, these things make it rich as well as red. And the 
Heart, answering back, says: “I want more of the 
RED!” 

Your efficiency depends largely upon how few Blue 
Devils you allow around. 

Drive out your Blue Devils. Smile them out. Work 
them out. Sleep them out. Love them out. Exercise 
them out. KICK them out! 



I F you 1 
Say 
If y 


fou believe in Yourself— 

Say so. 

If you have convictions worth while— 


Say so. 


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Take It 


If you are happy and are glad of Life— 

Say so. 

If some one helps you and lifts you up— 

Say so. 

If you think this is a great world in which to live— 
Say so. 

If you don’t like things as they are— 

Say so. 

If you make a blunder now and then, have the courage 
to— 

Say so. 

If you have love in your system, the world would like 
to know it— 

Say so. 

“What all the World’s A-Seeking,” is frank expres¬ 
sion and open confession. It begs for it every hour. 
It wants it now. In fact, one of the great pieces of build¬ 
ing material in your own personal success is the one that 
is able to suggest to you just how and when to— 

Say so. 

Dropping Stitches 

Ci A STITCH in time saves nine,” is a fine saying, 
/A but a greater thing than saving “nine” while 
■*“ you are stitching right along, is not to miss 

any stitches at all. For a stitch dropped, here and there, 
may lose you a thousand—and success itself, at the last. 
Drop no stitches at all. 

Every time you lose a minute of time, you drop a stitch 
in the string of your days, that you can never go back 
to and pick up. Every time you slight your work, you 
are dropping stitches that later are sure to unravel and 
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let out from your grasp the most vital things in life for 
you. 

Drop no stitches at all. 

What about that fellow over there, working as though 
he was paid a hundred dollars a minute, instead of his 
few dollars a week? Oh, nothing—excepting that he 
is dropping no stitches—which, being interpreted, means 
that he may some day own the business into which he now 
puts his whole heart. 

Drop no stitches'at all. 

Work as though the eyes of every person in the world 
watched. Work as though your present effort meant 
your final success. "Work as though you KNEW that 
no other man or woman in all the world could do what 
you do—as well as you CAN do it. 


Keep Pegging 

N ONE of us do so well but that we could do better. 
But it is a great mistake to sulk because results 
fail to measure up to our expectations. The 
proper thing to do at such a time is to smile and—peg and 
peg and peg. 

Keep pegging. 

At this very hour you may be engaged in a task or en¬ 
terprise that is showing signs of failure or symptoms of 
, weakness. Well, face them—but with confidence of win¬ 
ning in your system. In other words, peg and peg and 

peg- 

Keep pegging. 

Any one who has ever seen a college boat race has 
had illustrated to him a fine example of the Pegging away 
_ [ 86 ] 





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principle. The spurts at the start and for the first half 
of the race rarely win the race. It’s the crew that keeps 
pegging from the start, steadily and evenly, saving its 
strength for a final spurt at the finish, that wins. It 
knows the meaning of peg and peg and peg. 

Keep pegging. 

Discouraged? Peg a little harder. All “in”? Start 
pegging all over again. Want to see yourself grow ma¬ 
terially stronger day by day? All right. There is no 
better plan than to—peg and peg and peg. 

Keep pegging. 

Success Defined 

S UCCESS is just ordinary failure—turned forward. 
Success is a positive piece of business. There is 
nothing negative to it. 

Success is not a thing loaned, or borrowed, or handed 
down, or copied. Success is something earned, something 
found—something grasped. 

Also success is something that YOU are, and have, 
that nobody else is or has. Success is finding yourself— 
genuinely. For when you have found yourself, you have 
found your life work, which thereafter is but the inter¬ 
preting of what you are and have, set toward a noble 
viewpoint, and then translated into deeds and achieve¬ 
ments. 

The first process in success is to do your work in the 
BEST way that you know how. And the next process 
ever after is to follow up your work with something 
BETTER. 


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Take It 


Handful Democracy 

M AYHAP there be thousands that call you friend, 
but how many can you name? I think of my 
friends as my Handful Democracy. For I daily 
get further into life and find that I am able still to hold 
the total handful. 

My friends! that would strip their coats for me—and 
I for them, that dine as to the manner as I dine, that 
walk where I wish to walk, and who read and think 
and consider and sympathize as I do. Who locate re¬ 
sponsibility and like to help where it is lodged. Hand¬ 
ful Democracy—how limited in law—but how rich in 
love and order. 

I would do anything for my friend, and I know he 
would do anything for me. But I loved him even before 
I knew this. 

My friend is big to me, also he knows that I try to be 
big to him. He can’t be petty, because he is strong. 
When I am impatient, he is patient. We offset. We 
draw circles about each other and mark with pride the 
personal triumphs that spot out here and there. For 
when my friend climbs, I too, climb. Happiness, and 
work well performed, is the order of the day, and peace¬ 
ful rest—without the aid of poppy juice—the order of 
the night. 

My Handful Democracy is a limited organization of 
understanding. We each KNOW each other. And it 
takes years to—KNOW! 

Is your Handful Democracy as wonderful as mine ? I 
hope so. For if it is, I doubt not but that the working 
basis of the world is fairly sound. For from Handful 
Democracy must spring Group Democracy, and from 
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this, on and on, into World-wide Democracy. But not 
then the Millennium! Oh, no. Just something like it. 

Holdbackers 

E VER notice a balky horse? Ever notice how he 
just foolishly looks around himself, bites his bit— 
and absolutely refuses to go ahead or to be led or 
driven? He is a fit representative of thousands of human 
beings—and with but a fraction of their sense! 

One of the great sources of inspiration in this world 
is a human being who doesn’t bite his bit or hold back. 

You, whose brain has evolved a great organization— 
you know the joy that springs up out of the consciousness 
that those who work under your direction, not only take 
the bit in their teeth, but go ahead and pull the load. 
Also, you know the tremendousness of worry and weight 
that results from trying to pull an organization of hold¬ 
backers. 

If you can’t pull and if you can’t push, then for the 
sake of yourself and for the sake of the organization in 
which you find yourself, get out of the way and let the 
willing workers have their way. No man ever held back 
in any enterprise or crowd or business without first be¬ 
coming a holdbacker against himself. 

If people look upon you as a holdbacker, begin this 
minute within yourself to change “the map.” Get in 
place. Do your share. Pull with the rest. You will have 
no idea—until then—of what a fool you were as a hold¬ 
backer. You will become the “Cornerstone” of Effi¬ 
ciency. 

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Be Brief 

T HE more you make of yourself and the bigger you 
become—the more you will appreciate brevity. 
Among the interesting stories told of J. Pierpont 
Morgan at the time of his death was this: In conversa¬ 
tion with one of his friends the topic turned to the value 
of time, and Mr. Morgan stated that he estimated his 
time to be worth a thousand dollars an hour! Brevity al¬ 
ways counted with Mr. Morgan. 

Be brief. 

The habit of brevity becomes the habit of conservation. 
What you say accumulates for you. 

Be brief. 

Brevity starts with orderly habits of mind backed by a 
will and a worthy purpose. For the more you accomplish 
what really counts, the more you will value the minutes 
that belong to you and every one else—and the more you 
will appreciate brevity. 

Be brief. 

Be brief in what you have to say at all times. Think 
much. Talk little. Be brief in your letters. It takes 
time to read them. Concentrate your ideas. Lincoln’s 
Gettysburg address stands as the greatest and most 
notable that was ever delivered. It took but a few mo¬ 
ments to deliver it. The world long ago forgot the speech 
the scholarly Edward Everett delivered at the same time, 
as the “orator of the occasion.” Its delivery consumed 
over two hours. If you want to be effective— 

Be brief. 


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Talk Exchange 


J UST think what this world would be if people could 
not talk. Just think how miserable you would be if 
you could not find somebody to talk with at those 
times that come to everybody, when if you don’t talk and 
get your feelings into expression, it seems as though you 
would almost be self-smothered. 

But the essence of all foolishness is to talk, just to 
hear yourself talk or to hear somebody else talk. 

To talk well is as great an art as anything to which 
you are heir. To express yourself clearly, exactly, con¬ 
cisely—meaningly—can you imagine a man with more 
power? And isn’t talk the exact center of a man’s think¬ 
ing apparatus in action ? 

So, first learn to talk intelligently, interestingly, and 
then hunt out other people who have mastered the same 
thing. 

Exchange your ideas. Measure up your viewpoints 
with the viewpoints of other people. Line up your ex¬ 
periences with the experiences of others. Talk, but match 
your talk with results, then other people will always be 
intensely interested in everything you say. 



T HERE always has been and there always will be a 
certain percentage of people whose prosaic brains 
cannot fathom the fine things that make progress 
wonderful. 

When Admiral Peary, after having spent half a life¬ 
time in just seeking the North Pole, finally returned to 
his native land after accomplishing it, people said, “Now 


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that Peary has found the Pole, what does it all amount 
to?” 

Once a man named Patterson jumped into his automo¬ 
bile, took the wheel and left Chicago for New York. 
He made the trip in less than forty hours, breaking all 
amateur records. He got out of his automobile tired 
and worn, having had no sleep during all this time. He 
had actually whipped his body to the task. 

And again people said, “What did he gain by it?” 

I will tell you what Peary gained by it, and what Pat¬ 
terson gained by it. It is this—they did something that 
nobody else had ever done before, just because they 
wanted to do it—because of the love of doing it. It is 
such men as Peary and Patterson and scores of others 
of like calibre that furnish the axle grease that makes 
it possible for the world to move noiselessly but surely 
onward. 

There is bigness, character and wonderful reward in 
doing things just for the love of doing them. 


Men of Parts 

T HE doorkeepers to the idea houses, the enterprise 
shops, and the executive chambers of this world 
are held and lorded over by men of parts—men 
who can use a little tact here and a little tact there, men 
who know how to be strong when strength counts and 
who know how to be gentle when there is a call for gentle¬ 
ness. 

The saying is that it takes all kinds of people to make 
up a world, but it takes all kinds of a man to make up a 
man. 

[ 92 ] 




Take It 


This morning perhaps you read of some man you 
knew who failed. He lacked parts. The one part de¬ 
manded was not there. Daily we see crises, and at each 
time the silent voice that sounds loud—but into nobody’s 
ear excepting your own—is the voice that calls for one 
of those parts of yours to “make good.” 

If it were not for the men of parts interspersed through 
human society, all organization would tumble to pieces. 

Men of parts are those who do not neglect a single 
chance to develop some side of their nature. Daily they 
fight for something better, something untried, something 
that may come to them unexpectedly. If you want to be 
happy and successful see how many of your parts you 
can educate to their highest efficiency. 


The Human Republic 

T HE whole world is beginning to acknowledge that 
the republican form of government is the nearest 
approach to a perfect form of government—a gov¬ 
ernment reflecting and as fully as possible expressing the 
ideas, aims and struggles of the people who form the 
government. 

It is probably because of these truths that your body 
forms a natural Republic in itself. Your marvelous 
mind with its Body of Executors cannot act inde¬ 
pendently nor can it act autocratically. Each faculty 
of your body, every nerve center, every muscle, every 
organ, may supplement to a small or large degree the 
purpose back of every command that the Rulers in your 
brain give out. 

So that the greatest man is the man who rules him- 
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self greatest. And no man can rule smoothly, strongly, 
heroically without every member of his body Republic 
working in unison. And the more perfect this union the 
more powerful and the more masterful the man. 

Think of yourself as a living, moving Republic—a 
Democracy able to be idealized as well as made to work in 
practical fashion for the practical good of yourself and 


all. 


Encouragement 


OU may think the above is a very commonplace 



subject. It is. So is bread a commonplace prod- 


uct.. But think what the world owes to bread! 
Then think what you owe to encouragement. 

Bread is made for the stomach, but encouragement is 
for everything that makes up the body and life interest 
of a man. 

A human being may be given sufficient bread to satisfy 
his craving and hunger, but no human being ever received 
all the encouragement that he wanted. In fact, the longer 
he lives and the more successful he becomes, the more he 
craves it. 

To-day, study the first dozen faces that you meet. Do 
you think you could pick out one that wouldn’t beam 
and brighten after a little encouragement ? Answer—no, 
no one. Every last member of the human race, moment 
by moment, craves—hungers and thirsts—for encour¬ 
agement. Just think of it. Then— 

Make it one of the busiest habits of your life to En¬ 
courage everybody that you can. 

For every time you encourage some one else, you en¬ 
courage YOURSELF. And the more people you en- 


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courage, the more encouraged you become. You don’t 
have to belong to any society or club or organization. 
And you don’t need any “funds,” or experience for that 
matter. All you have to have is the willingness to en¬ 
courage. You can be a regular little encouragement 
society—President, Secretary and Treasurer—all by your¬ 
self. 

That is what the writer of this little book is trying to 
be—for you. I hope he succeeds. 


Adventure 

D ON’T get down so deep into a groove that you 
can’t jump out. Don’t let your body get bent over 
through application, else maybe some day you 
may try to look up and you can’t. Use alone vivifies and 
vitalizes every faculty that you have. Let any ability of 
talent lie inactive long enough and it will either become 
buried or impotent. One of the greatest salvations of a 
human soul lies in its free hope for adventure. 

It is the love of accomplishment in adventure that 
hardens and solidifies a man and keeps his legs from be¬ 
coming wobbly. 

Don’t let the commonplace satisfy you or else it is 
liable to squeeze its strength about your neck, finally to 
choke you. Do a little adventuring. Get away from 
things and seek originality. Have a hobby or so and 
follow it to its limit. Travel. Get among new faces, 
new scenes. Wedge yourself into the midst of new oc¬ 
currences. Start new thinking. Read new books. Ana¬ 
lyze happenings, and every once in a while create hap¬ 
penings. 

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Just as truly as a new broom sweeps well so the same 
old brain you have, stirred up, creates new enthusiasm. 
And it is enthusiasms that give to adventure its attrac¬ 
tion. 

Assert Yourself 

I F you don’t know what is in yourself, nobody else 
will ever know it. But just as soon as you recognize 
that you have considerable ability, that moment your 
ability begins to stick out. 

Assert yourself. 

Napoleon was scarcely more than a boy when he took 
command of the Army of Italy. His soldiers almost mis¬ 
trusted him, but the minute that he began to give his 
orders, concisely and straightforwardly, every man en¬ 
thusiastically followed his lead. And battle after battle 
was won. For a leader was at the helm. 

Assert yourself. 

The inactive mind is the mind asleep, but the active 
mind is the mind asserting itself. Just the minute you 
begin to systematically organize the forces within you 
and put a definite purpose in front of them, that minute 
you assert yourself, and the world will recognize in you 
a man of initiative, of action, and of doing. 

Assert yourself. 

You have yourself largely to blame if you stand com¬ 
plaining to-day over your lot. Assert yourself, demand 
recognition. And the happiness that is sure to come 
over you from the secret knowledge that you are going 
forward is sure to make you masterful and dominating. 
Assert yourself. 

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On Being Sorry 

M ANY a man makes a blunder and spends the rest 
of his life being sorry for it. Thousands of 
people, every day, literally eat their lives to star¬ 
vation because at some time or other they stubbed their 
toes. 

It is well to be sorry—but after that, you should for¬ 
get it. 

Repentance is good, but reparation is better. Time 
heals and forgets. What you are NOW is better than 
what you were THEN. It’s what a man does NOW that 
makes him valuable and likable. History thinks too much 
of its spare time to talk much about the blunders of its 
actors. 

The best way to be sorry is to show the world in deeds 
that you are human enough to be bigger than your errors. 

Be sorry. It’s good for your liver. But get over it 
and beyond it as quick as you can. 


Feet and Eyes 

Y OUR eyes guide your feet. The one is the depen¬ 
dent of the other. When your eyes wander, your 
feet stumble. 

Teach your feet and eyes the same lessons—send them 
to the same school. 

But never forget that your eyes are the pilots to your 
sc^ul. For the soul without a pilot is a character adrift. 

See what you want. Then take your feet steadily to 
it. Look neither to the right nor to the left. Be a Cap¬ 
tain worthy of your ship. 

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Look for the big and the best. And when you find 
them, adopt them for use. Eyes! Look out to-day. 
Feet! Be sure you get the right cue from your eyes. 

For feet, properly guided by eyes, clear visioned and 
imaginative, will guide you—the master of your own 
fate—into those paths of life which lead steadily and 
persistently onward and upward. 

Lonely Isolation 

L ET all your varied life experiences serve important 
ends. Many will come and seek to dislodge your 
heart from its casing. Many will bring you to a 
lonely isolation—where alone, if you are unafraid—you 
will be able to develop and store up great power, so that 
when you “come back” and the crowd understands, you 
will not lose your head. 

But don’t mistake self pity for martyrdom or stupid 
stubbornness for calm courage. 

The world, sooner or later, comes to the view of the 
man whose sense of right and conscientious conviction 
sets firm in the face of missiles, tin cans, and bricks. And 
that man holds his own best whose idea of “the greatest 
good to the greatest number” doesn’t lose its edge against 
popular storm. 

Lonely isolation! After all such a position isn’t so 
lonely. For at some time or other every great man or 
woman must experience it. 


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Carpets and Cushions 



HEN Newell Dwight Hillis, successor of Henry- 


Ward Beecher, was asked his attitude, in case 


there should be those of the unemployed who 


might ask to sleep in his church, during the cold season, 
he replied that he certainly should allow them to do so— 
that he could never see “folks” as less in value than “car¬ 
pets and cushions.” 

There is altogether too much carpet and cushion con¬ 
sideration moving around. 

So long as we ourselves have our sunshine we cannot 
understand the shadow somewhere else. And yet, there 
is never sunshine without shadows. 

The worker who cannot see beyond his own little out¬ 
lined duties, is a representation of the carpet and cushion 
philosophy in life. How fast this idea is getting to big 
business men. Evidently Henry Ford, the Detroit busi¬ 
ness man, had this in mind when he initiated his co¬ 
operative plan of dividing liberally with those who helped 
make his own success. 

Anyway, the sooner we all get away from the mean car¬ 
pet and cushion kind of worship, the better for the world 
and people and posterity. 


Sail On—And On! 


O NE of the greatest poems ever written is that one 
named “Columbus,” by Joaquin Miller, the West¬ 
ern poet. The inspiration of ages seems wrapped 
in its power and suggestion. 

At every moment despair seemed to eat deeper into 


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every man that stood by the heroic Columbus as he 
visioned a new land—somewhere. But as each man came 
to the commander and urged turning back, but one reply 
came back: “Sail on—and on—and on!” 

And Columbus sailed on—and on and on. His faith 
and courage has inspired a world. It waits upon you. 
At the moment when you feel that somehow you can’t 
go a step farther, think of Columbus, and “Sail On— 
and On—and On!” 

Hands 

S AM JONES used to say that most people had three 
hands—their right hand, their left hand, and their 
behind hand! He told the truth. 

But Sam should have gone further. He should have 
said that most people should have three hands—their 
right hand, their left hand, and their before hand. For 
the man who makes it a practice of always being before 
hand, usually wins out. 

The successful salesmen of the country, in nearly every 
instance, are those who have their fat orders all tucked 
away in their pockets or else on their way to the home 
office, before the other fellows have set out for their 
day’s work. The before hand man—employ him. The 
before hand man—you be that man. 

And then there is the on hand man—always there at 
the right time, always there when he’s needed as well as 
when he isn’t needed—for he is the man who says that 
he may be needed at any time. 

Why wouldn’t four hands fit most men and women 
best? Here they are—Right Hand, Left Hand, Before 
Hand—On Hand. 

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Brain Youth 

S OME one has given to us the striking sentence: “To 
the young, Nature does nothing but give: from the 
old she does nothing but take away.” Your brain is 
the only power in your entire body that may not age. 
So— 

Keep youth alive in your brain. 

To your Brain your Will may say: “Life at its longest 
is but like the looking back and reviewing of a single 
day.” For youth never returns to your muscles and to 
your bones and to your arteries once it is gone,—but 
youth trots along with your Brain—if your Will says 
so. 

Keep youth alive in your brain. 

William E. Gladstone, past eighty, chopping down 
trees, translating the classics anew, tramping the fields and 
solving mysteries—stands out as one of the most striking 
examples in history of one who kept his Brain young 
as his body grew old. 

Keep youth alive in your brain. 

It is interest that puts youth into your Brain and 
drives away age. Just so long as you are interested in 
the things you are doing, just so long work will grow 
upon you, strengthening your loyalty and enthusiasm and 
every ounce of your effort. 

Keep youth alive in your brain. 


r ioi] 





Take It 


Your Majesty 

T HE only difference between a King and anybody 
else is that he rules. It doesn’t matter how many 
he rules, if he rules at all, he’s King. 

If you are not a King, it’s because you don’t rule— 
yourself! That is a wise saying that “he who rules his 
own spirit is greater than he who takes a city.” Don’t 
you see? We hear a lot about “the majesty of the law.” 
There isn’t anything or any one so majestic as the man 
who knows HE is King. YOUR Majesty! Do you 
grasp the meaning? 

All right—Your Majesty. Enter your work with zest 
and zeal. Prove your personal leadership. And if you 
are going to be a King at all, be a BIG one—Your 
Majesty! 

No man knows his limitations—few of us have ever 
accomplished a fifth of what we are capable. Kings 
alone have reached the summit. And no man is a REAL 
King who has not pushed back his mental horizon to its 
uttermost limits—Your Majesty. 


On Confessing 

T HEY say that “confession is good for the soul.” 
I’ll tell you something that confession is better 
for than the soul. It’s better for the brain, and 
stomach, and nerves, and liver than it ever could be for 
the soul. For these things keep the soul in health. 
Confession is regeneration—re-CREATION. 

So long as you have the courage to confess, to ac- 
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knowledge error, just so long are you your fine, whole¬ 
some, human self. 

But keep your confessions to yourself. You are the 
one most interested in your own mistakes and blunders. 
And you are the one who benefits most when you render 
service! 

Confess to yourself. Get to the point where you and 
yourself are on the best of terms—regular boon compan¬ 
ions. 

Don’t let other people get the chance to gloat over your 
failures and toe-stubs. Get alone with yourself as often 
as you can and give yourself the most thorough criticism. 
Draw a picture with your mind’s eye and in it put your 
'‘lacks.” Scrutinize your failures and determine to clean 
up your life by eliminating the useless and undone for 
the helpful and serviceful. 

Form the habit of daily, quiet, personal confession over 
and over again to yourself. But confess—to construct, to 
build better—to LIVE. 


Step Back 

O UR big ideas come about through perspectives by 
stepping back far enough to see, in its entirety, 
the thing of which we are required to offer 
judgment. 

Step back. 

History is written from perspective. A man has to die 
in order that the complete measure of his work may be 
calmly viewed and taken. It is then that the trifles and 
the unimportant points lose and give way to the bolder 
outlines of his career. It is then that the rugged features 
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that made his life dominant stay and stick, and form as it 
were, on the horizon of history, clear cut marks. 

Step back. 

Look at things from a distance. Judge your friend 
not by his eccentricities and failures and trivial sinnings, 
but by his whole life, his formulated plans, his visioned 
ideals and his loyalty. 

Step back. 

If your work seems to accord to you nothing but dull 
monotony and uninspired routine, step back. Perhaps 
you are emphasizing the small details and are working 
too near your tasks to see the big points that should spur 
and arouse you. Pause now and then—step back. 
View your work calmly by getting a new perspective and 
then enter into it afresh. 

Step back. 


The Unexpected 



HERE is in life no running thrill like unto the 


thrill of the Unexpected. Even though it may 


loom, as through magic, fully clothed in the garb 
of the Expected. 

Expect the Unexpected. 

Like love, itself the greatest of all of the things Unex¬ 
pected, the Unexpected always comes unannounced and 
void of aids. It just walks up in the midst of the right 
moment and straightforwardly says: “How do you do!” 
And you, too stunned with joy for the correct reply, 
simply laugh with happiness, outside in and inside out. 

Expect the Unexpected. 

Success and happiness are Infinite, like life. You can- 


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not say that either ended yesterday or ever will end. For 
everything wonderful is cumulative. And the things 
you keep and which make you great are the things you 
give away—the gifts and happenings that flash in the 
form of the Unexpected and that make you glad and 
appreciative. So— 

Expect the Unexpected. 

Full of Heart 

T HERE is too much of everything in this world— 
except Heart. Too much money, too much ex¬ 
citement, too many attractions, too many things 
to do—that don’t get done. But in a million years this 
old world won’t have too much Heart. 

Isn’t it strange that nearly all of us fight and fret and 
worry our lives out for everything excepting the one 
great thing that counts greatest? 

I read in a book the other day of a wonderfully suc¬ 
cessful business man, and the writer said that he was 
“Full of Heart.” Is it any wonder that his great working 
plant, where he employs thousands, is one of the model 
plants of the world? 

I had a disagreement with a friend the other day, and 
I at once said to myself—“You aren’t full of Heart,” 
or else you would have understood. For it is the Heart 
people that understand and who know just how to do the 
right thing at the right time. 

Just think what all life would be like if it were full of 
Heart. And just consider how strangely different you 
would be if people could say of you—“Well, he is full of 
Heart, anyway.” 

Doesn’t it seem cheap and out of place to put money 
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and fame and all such dying things as comparisons in 
value to a man who is full of Heart? 

Heart weight is sure to excuse a multitude of mistakes 
and shortcomings and failures. So, when you get to the 
point where you don’t know which way to turn, start 
filling up your Heart. Then let it run over into the 
Heart of some one else. 

Understanding 

O NE of the wisest things ever said was this by 
Solomon: “Wisdom is the principal thing: 

therefore get Wisdom: and with all thy getting 
get Understanding.” 

The smartest people are neither the greatest nor most 
useful. Many of the greatest characters in all history 
were men and women of comparatively limited educa¬ 
tion. And some of the most noted fools of history have 
been the most learned. 

To have great wisdom is gratifying, but of no value if 
there is not back of it, great understanding—human un¬ 
derstanding. 

The people you love and honor are those who under¬ 
stand you, and understand Life and understand God. 

It’s the vital understanding back of a big problem that 
makes it possible to be fought for and even died for. 
Just the minute you understand, you begin to produce to 
grow. 

If you understand the big things that make Life a 
livable affair, you are at once happy and content. Your 
path is marked and your vision is the vision of one who 
knows the way and is not afraid to go ahead and trust 
for his Destination. 

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Spirit 

T HE spirit in which you live and work is the great 
balancing force that keeps you from falling into 
the humdrum and out of the front racers who 
are making this world a happy and wonderful place in 
which to live. 

It is all in the spirit—in the personal attitude that you 
take toward life and your work and your friends. 

What is a college without a college spirit? What is a 
business office without a business spirit, that is coopera¬ 
tive, genial, enthusiastic? What is love without the love 
spirit? What is a home without the home spirit? 

The right spirit will do anything that a human being 
is capable of doing. Real spirit is never defeated. Real 
spirit shoves aside mountains, takes grumblers and ob¬ 
structions by the nape of the neck and easily throws them 
into the discard. 

Spirit works over roads, rough hewn, with no discour¬ 
agement at the helm and with no possibility of defeat 
anywhere. 

Whether you will be happy in what you have accom¬ 
plished at the close of this day or not depends upon the 
spirit with which you enter it and imbue it. 

The Important Man 

Y OU are important if you put yourself in the way 
of important things to be done—and do them. 
The years, since history began, have produced 
dreamers and air castle builders, whose imaginary 
achievements would have astounded the world had they 
actually put their mind pictures into reality. But all 
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along, such have breathed out their span and died ordi 
nary and unknown. 

The important man is he who puts his dreams an< 
great imaginations into works. 

The men who pave our streets and plow our soil, anc 
run our machines, and write our books—and who dc 
whatsoever useful things that come to hand—are im 
portant men. The task is not always indicative of the 
importance of the man. But the man is always indicative 
of the importance of the task. 

Your future importance depends upon the importance 
you place in the things you now do. 

Why and How 

O UR little human lives are inspired on their several 
ways largely through agencies that, in them¬ 
selves, are immensely wonderful and awe creat- 
ing, yet by us mysteriously unknowable—as great truths, 
too gigantic for us but to squint at—like even to the 
creation of every growing thing, whose source we cannot 
understand. 

And yet there is not a single created thing—even the 
most minute—but that renders lessons, that the simplest 
of humans may not learn, fully understand, and take to 
heart. 

The biggest secrets of the stars will always remain 
unknown; no one will ever become wise enough to fully 
explain the miraculousness of the giant tree from the 
little seed ; or the wonders of the harvest; or the why and 
how of the storm. But inspiration fairly bursts from 
each. 

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Take It 


It's the things that we don’t know that drive us to 
know what we do know. 

This day comes to you as a sealed book. Trouble 
yourself not as to the why and how of it. It’s pregnant 
with power, opportunity, happiness, service—and there 
is a direct appeal in it, fashioned by a Master Hand— 
for you. Let not this day be disappointed in you—or you 
in this day. 


The Unconquerable 



HERE is something fine and fascinating about the 


one who is never licked within himself. And 


though disaster may be holding him within its 
arms, yet to him there is none of disaster, and to those 
who congregate within the area of his influence there is 
nothing but admiration. 

As a matter of fact, nothing can bend to the breaking 
point a real man. He is as fresh if not fresher in defeat 
than he is in victory. 

If you are unconquerable you are daily fighting innu¬ 
merable battles that are virtually won in advance so that 
when a few defeats do come they are swept away by your 
accumulated unconquerableness. 

There is very little difference in the human composi¬ 
tion of people. It is the mental composition and charac¬ 
ter that mark one man above the other and it is these 
very things that make one man unconquerable and lack of 
them that make the other man always whipped before he 
has even so much as entered the contest. 

There are few who are by choice your enemy. And 
should there be any one of this sort, how easily you can 
eliminate them when you realize that the whole universe 


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belongs to you and daily works for you because it is your 
friend. 

If you are to conquer it, determine to make yourself 
from the top of your head to your toes absolutely uncon¬ 
querable. 

The Waiting Room 

H OW many hours a day do you spend in the wait¬ 
ing room?- For none of us ever travels in a 
straight path. We are constantly shifting gears, 
changing stations and taking journeys into countries 
strange. 

Draw to your mind for an instant the picture of a 
railroad waiting room—people sitting with their luggage 
and holding their hands in their laps, idly glancing about 
the room. At this very minute this scene is being en¬ 
acted in thousands of waiting rooms all over the world. 

Think of the hours of possible improvement entirely 
lost. Think of the chances for plans pushed aside. 
Think of the dozen and one things that might be accom¬ 
plished while in the waiting room. 

Trite as it may sound, it is not so much the amount 
of time you use that counts as the amount of time you 
don’t use at all. 

As you go your way, grow your way. Thousands of 
books are manufactured that can be slipped almost into 
a vest pocket. A little note book doesn’t take much room. 
Nestled next to a pencil you have the working utensils 
for the shaping of ideas and for the working out of plans 
and for the stirring up of things—while in the waiting 
room, whether the waiting room be at a railroad station, 
in a street car, on the train or no matter where. 

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March with Events 

T HERE is nothing more pitiful than to see a man 
trying to block events, sure to happen, or laugh¬ 
ing at their onward march, sneering at their unim¬ 
portance. The only people really worth while to the 
world are those who march with events—like obedient 
soldiers. 

You can’t block time. It will come and it will go and 
no man can stay, for a second, its onward march. Nor 
can anybody even remotely hope to keep to-day and to¬ 
day’s usages longer than for to-day. So, therefore, 
march with events, catch the tune and keep your step. 

The event will be interpreted if you walk its way, but 
there will be need for generosity, there will be a demand 
for breadth of viewpoint, and there must be respect for 
the opinions of the masses. 

Get into the spirit of events. Learn to interpret them 
as you would interpret the thought of a great man. Know 
how to determine the important from the unimportant. 
March with events. 

But Once 

H ALF the efficiency of every man is lost through 
failure to realize that the energies he calls into 
play for each and every effort should be ren¬ 
dered full-heartedly. There is too much feeling of a O, 
well, this is good enough for this time.” 

You who habitually slight your work or at times feel 
its small importance, remember this—you will have an 
opportunity to do your best in any single effort—but once. 
Of course, you will have an opportunity to do it over 
[ill] 





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again, but that will mean time and effort lost and en¬ 
thusiasm shattered. There is only one way to do any 
piece of work and that is to do it in such a way that you 
are convinced that it will be your sole try at that job— 
that your chance at making everything in its connection 
count is given you—but once. 

How many a regret floats on the atmosphere simply 
because you have missed so many times the but onces. 
But every time you brood over regrets you take a step 
backward. It may be true that a bird with a broken 
pinion never soars as high again, but there is nothing 
recorded to show that the music doesn’t sound as sweet 
from his marvelous little throat. 


Your Colors 



HE whole spirit of Patriotism in a country is lib¬ 


erally bound to its Flag, with firm, invisible 


strings, connecting its life and hope with every 
thinking human within the borders of its land. So with 
you, in your colors lie your complete hopes of success. 

“Moreover, as one big thinker once said—“Whatever 
hauls down the colors of the human soul is treason to the 
universe.” 

You are your colors. Just the moment you begin to 
lose faith, just the moment you become wobbly, depend¬ 
ent and unwilled, hand over hand you begin to play 
treason to yourself and to the world. 

Every man flies colors of his own. Some may be bat¬ 
tle-scarred, torn, bullet-ridden and materially unbeauti¬ 
ful—but wholly inspiring, thrilling to every eye fortunate 
enough to come within range of vision. 

No one but a traitor throws the Flag of his country to 


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the dust to take up the Flag of another country, wholly 
despised even by the followers of the Flag he may 
through treachery adhere to. So, you fly your own 
colors, fight for them, and, if necessary, die for them, for 
your colors are your principles. And the sum of your 
principles is the total of your character. 

Danger 

D ANGER, in itself, holds great training power. 
For it is in times of sore distress and open danger 
that the souls of men are put to the test Few 
men are born cowards. Mostly they make themselves 
cowards. In the face of danger the hero looms. 

Learn to face danger—calmly. 

There are few great soldiers but that will admit the 
first impulse in going into battle is to immediately turn 
and run. But once they get into action, mere danger 
looks trivial and only the chance to prove courageous and 
of mettle counts with them. Personal safety, to such, 
soon becomes the minimum thing. 

Learn to face danger—calmly. 

We are daily beset with danger. Danger is one of the 
mystery gods. But to him who daily schools himself to 
EXPECT danger, at any hour, when danger does come, 
it is to such a one, but a new situation to meet and face 
and conquer—fortified as he is, against all thought of 
cowardice. So, daily— 

Learn to face danger—calmly. 


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Human Nobility 

H UMAN nobility is the grandest and sweetest 
affair in the world. And it is everywhere. Most 
of it you fail to see or never hear about. When 
Jacob A. Riis died a big part of the world stopped to drop 
some tears. He never held any great office. And yet one 
of the ex-Presidents of the United States stated that he 
was the best friend that he ever had. And thousands of 
“the other half” wept in great sorrow when they learned 
that he was gone. Men and women—now babies—will 
some day bless his name. 

Human nobility—doesn’t it stir your soul? 

When the Titanic went down there were nearly a thou¬ 
sand on board. But there wasn’t a single story of coward¬ 
ice or complaining recorded. Courage, marvelous con¬ 
sideration, quickly asserted, as well as rare coolness, 
prevailed. Human nobility again showed the world that 
character must not be disturbed. 

But it doesn’t take catastrophe to reveal human nobil¬ 
ity. 

If you will some day, when in one of our great cities 
at late night, but note the lights flicker here and there all 
through the floors of the mighty skyscrapers, you may 
know that thousands of women are at that hour upon 
their knees scrubbing the floors that you so often walk 
during the day—women, MOTHERS, uncomplainingly 
doing the most menial service, that a great city and com¬ 
merce may not pause. Could any one perform more 
nobly ? 

For is not nobility just SERVICE, after all—whether 
small or great? 

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Forever 

T HERE is no fact that comes to a man with quite 
the same awe-inspiring bearing as does the one 
that mutely says: “What you do, no matter in 
what capacity, has an effect to some degree on something 
or some one—Forever!” 

Everything tends toward the Forever. 

A thought does not die. Then why can a deed? Noth¬ 
ing is lost in Nature. Then why among the human 
throng? You think and act in minutes—but these things, 
added to time, go on and on and on. Immortality smiles 
or frowns at everything that is of you a part. 

The Forever pays no attention to back calls. 

No man can sincerely take himself and his world too 
seriously. Gameness, a sense of humor, ridicule, a sophis¬ 
ticated heart—these things can’t whistle the attention of 
the Forever or even make it pause long enough to look 
around. 

Forever, Forever, Forever—every minute you lock 
arms with it. 

And you—humble, unknown worker—you are as much 
at this second a part of things Forever as the greatest of 
the earth. Just bear this in mind. It will help marvel¬ 
ously to lift you upward and onward. 

Good-By 

S OMETIMES it seems as though Life was nothing 
but a series of How-do-you-dos, Glad-to-meet-yous, 
and Good-bys. But, I think that Good-bys are the 
ones in which the human world seems most touched. 
There are many kinds of Good-bys. But, perhaps the 
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main ones all come under these three: the Good-by to 
the one that you hope you will never see again; the 
Good-by to the one that you hope you will see again; 
and the Good-by to the one you know you will never see 
again, but whom you will always long to see again. 

So that in Good-bys there are tears as well as smiles, 
hope as well as temporary despair. 

But, in reality, to the great soul, there can be no real 
sorrowful Good-by. We human beings are so saturated 
with mere sentiment and precedent that we little appre¬ 
ciate seriously the aftermath of the meaning-full Good- 
by. 

For myself, I can never be brought to believe that this 
life ends all. To me it appears as but a grand beginning 
—into which is born the light of Love and from which 
must evolve most naturally some kind of a magnificent 
Eternity. So, for me, there can be no Good-by forever— 
no matter to whom or under what circumstance the Good- 
by is said. 

That’s why I want you to feel and know my kind of a 
Good-by—one that may even smile—in tears. 


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